


An Avenue By Any Other Name

by ktula



Category: BlacKkKlansman (2018), The Kitchen (2019)
Genre: First Time, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, No mpreg, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, child!Stensland, cops can have little a criminal as a treat, excuse me that's my emotional support baby, friendship ended with serious tags now shitposting is my only friend, gay awakening (tm), kidfic (sort of), kylux adjacent, one teaspoon of emotional intelligence doled out over the length of the fic, they're lesbians flip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:47:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22292794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktula/pseuds/ktula
Summary: Flip Zimmerman knows Gabriel O’Malley from way back—an undercover case he’d botched for reasons he still can’t quite figure out. But that was three years ago. Now, Flip’s career is more or less back on track, and he doesn’t think about the sawmill thing at all.But when Gabriel O’Malley calls, it throws Flip’s life for a loop.And it’s worse now, because Gabriel’s got a stolen* baby with him.*No babies were stolen in the making of this fic.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, Gabriel O'Malley/Flip Zimmerman
Comments: 255
Kudos: 309





	1. Holding Pattern

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fauxtalian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fauxtalian/gifts).



> It's the Zimmalley! Finally!
> 
> I've set the fic post-Blackkklansman, and post-The Kitchen, though I've made some changes to Kitchen canon from both the movie and the comic book. So we're functioning around 1985 or so here, but I'm sure I made a number of anachronistic errors that we're all going to have the decency to ignore in favour of smut.
> 
> Chapter warnings will be at the end.
> 
> There is, wonderfully, embedded art by the lovely [Fauxtalian](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1), who I am DELIGHTED to announce has done SO MUCH ART for this piece. Honestly, I'm thrilled. Thank you. <3

Flip’s between investigations, so the phone isn’t supposed to be plugged in. It sure as shit isn’t supposed to ring, and if it does, there’s no reason to answer, but he’s bored as fuck—burnt out on paperwork, and actually debating taking one of the recruits out on patrol because they won’t have any clue he’s supposed to be working cases—so when the phone rings, Flip answers it.

“Hey.”

He doesn’t realize until Ron turns around and gives him a _look_ that it was the custom ring, that custom ring belongs to the phone wasn’t supposed to be plugged in. Just to be sure, he looks down at the cord, tracing it back to the phone that is…definitely not his desk phone. Fuck.

It’s the yellow phone, and it really should have been disconnected, because there’s no active case using it right now. It’s probably time to let the number go anyway, because they’d used it for this case, and they’d used it three years ago for the sawmill thing, the—

“Hey yourself,” a New York accent drawls on the other end of the line. “Good to hear your voice.”

—O’Malley case, which had been a cock-up so bad it’d nearly ended Flip’s career.

“Uh,” Flip says, everything deserting him all at once, just like it had last time. He smells woodsmoke, suddenly, rubs his cheek against his shoulder to get rid of the phantom oxygen mask strapped to his face. The silence is awful, but there’s nothing to fill it with, because Flip’s mouth is dry, and Ron is gesturing at him to _say something_ but Flip doesn’t have any words right now, he’s just—

“So I stole somethin’,” Gabriel O’Malley says on the other end of the line. “And I’m lookin’ to offload it somewhere safe.”

“I’m not—I’m not in that line of business anymore,” Flip says, closing his eyes partially so he doesn’t have to look at Ron, and partially because it’s the only chance he’s got at dredging up the remnants of an old cover he hasn’t thought about since the sawmill went up in flames, and Flip with it. The cover for this case was—fucking hell, what the hell was the name—Franco de Luca, a petty criminal and sometimes fence with a whole host of—fuck, come on, he can still get out of this if he can just fucking _think_. “I can check my contacts, see if—”

“Nah,” O’Malley says on the other end of the line. There’s a rustling sound as he shifts, his exhale closer to the receiver before he backs off. “Your contacts are bullshit. You were never in that line of business.”

Flip’s breath catches. He’s supposed to be thinking on his feet right now, but nothing’s coming. He leans back in his chair, stares up like the precinct ceiling is gonna help him out somehow, but there’s nothing up there but the occasional spitball plastered onto the ceiling.

“I know you’re a cop,” O’Malley says, voice low, mouth too close to the receiver. Inhales, deep, like he’s smoking, or maybe like he’s got something else to say, but there’s only silence.

Flip’s entire body goes cold. He sits up, meets Ron’s eyes by accident, can’t even think of what to mouth at him. (Ten minutes ago, he’d have told anybody who asked to fuck off talking about that case, he’s said to Ron in private that it was a shitshow even though he didn’t have to say anything because Ron fucking _knew_ —but this is worse, this is so much worse than he thought.)

There’s a long exhale on the other end of the line. “Always been a cop,” O’Malley continues, like it’s the punchline to a joke he’s been waiting three years to tell. “Bet you’re at the precinct right now, down in Colorado Springs, sitting there with your buddies. Apartment on the west side of town, my ass.” His intonation is flat, and Flip can still recall the expression on his face perfectly, even after all this time.

(Ron’s turned his chair the entire way around so he’s watching Flip directly, not even making the effort to look like he’s doing something else, even though there’s no way O’Malley’s talking loud enough for Ron to be able to hear it.)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Flip says. He doesn’t sound like Franco de Luca. He doesn’t sound like himself either. “I’ve never fucked you over, O’Malley, not once—”

Fuck, the goddamn look on Ron’s face right now.

“I dunno,” O’Malley says, voice low and soft. “I seem to recall—fucking _shit—”_

There’s a sharp wail in the background. Flip gestures to Ron—but before Ron can even move, the line suddenly goes dead.

He listens a moment longer, just in case, and then hangs the phone up, scrubs his hand over his face like that was a perfectly normal phone call, like he can remember his own name right now, and not just that half-ass twitch at the edge of O’Malley’s mouth when he was ducking his head to hide a smile. Flip swallows.

Looks at Ron.

Ron looks at him.

Flip opens his mouth. Nothing happens. He grabs for his coffee cup, but the damn thing is empty, and it clacks against his teeth as he swigs at nothing. A shadow falls over his desk—Ron, with a stack of paperwork.

“You coming to help me sort this shit out, Zimmerman?”

The snark rolls off his tongue, easy as anything. “Told you to keep up on that shit so it doesn’t build up on you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, asshole. You owe me.”

Flip makes a point of standing slow, stretching out before he boots his chair back under his desk, follows behind Ron at a casual amble—but fuck, though. It feels great to get out of his desk and leave that fucking yellow phone behind him.

* * *

“Christ,” Ron says, shaking his head. They’re in the safety of the file room now, and Ron had kicked out the rookie manning the desk, so they’ve got some privacy—but fucking hell. “Probably the last person you expected to talk to today, huh?”

Flip makes a non-committal noise, keeps pacing down the aisle till he gets to the wall, and then turns around and heads back, dragging his fingers along the file boxes. He’s good at undercover. He knows he’s good at undercover. It’s just that the entire Gabriel O’Malley case, start to fucking inglorious finish, was a complete goddamn mess. Flip knows it, Ron knows it. Most of the department suspects it, but Ron must have smoothed that over while Flip was on leave, because by the time Flip came back to the office, all he had to do was scowl a couple of times, and nobody even bothered asking him how things were going anymore, and it’s three years later and he’s done plenty of cases so that shit just doesn’t come up anymore, except now it feels like the sawmill just burnt down _yesterday_ , and Flip is fucked in the head about it all over again.

(He wants a drink.)

And Flip doesn’t just— _lose_ cover identities like that. Not for the ones where he’s actually in it, wired up and on-site and interacting with targets on a regular basis. He could have recited Franco de Luca’s entire life story to Ron this morning, absolutely cold, no need to reference anything—but the minute he heard Gabriel O’Malley’s voice, that slow drawl and the soft sound of his breath, it’s like everything Flip’s ever known in his life just goes right the fuck out of his head, cover identity included.

And Ron knows that too. “You cracked again,” he says, voice gentle. “Like, immediately.”

Flip just looks at him, swallows. “You gonna offer to answer the phone for me next time too? Make sure I don’t bring shame down on the department?”

“What I told you then still stands,” Ron says. “A black man showin’ up calling himself Franco De Luca is gonna make fifteen times more sense than anything you did on that case, Zimmerman.”

“Wasn’t a good case,” Flip agrees. Hesitates. Swallows. “Wasn’t a good phone call today, either.”

“You had three years to get your shit together,” Ron agrees. “’S fine that it’s not, though.” He leans back against the shelves, waits.

(Flip hasn’t fucked up badly enough today for Ron’s hand on his back. That’d been just the once, after the sawmill had gone up, after Flip had run into a burning building after O’Malley, only for Ron to drag Flip back out by his shirt. He remembers distinctly how it felt, sitting on the tailgate of the ambulance, breathing into the stupid fucking mask, the oxygen making him giddy. Ron’s hand on his back, weighing him down, keeping him grounded, keeping him falling off some kind of a fucking cliff because he’d just killed an informant and hadn’t gotten the information he needed either. The night sky was clear but for all the fucking smoke, and Gabriel O’Malley was burning to death right at that moment and Flip was the asshole sitting out in the back of a parked ambulance. He wasn’t even that bad off, not in comparison, wasn’t burning to death, didn’t really need the oxygen mask, couldn’t—

—and then Gabriel had popped up in New York nearly a year later, like a bad penny, and the news filtered back to the Springs eventually, but that’d been a year Flip had been drinking himself into a stupor most nights, and some of the mornings besides, but Ron had been there when he’d dragged himself out of that too, just like Ron was here now.)

Flip sighs, looks at Ron. He doesn’t know where to start now, just like he didn’t know where to start then.

“So I gotta ask,” Ron says after a few minutes. “We’ve had all this change in the department lately. Progress. I’m not the only black cop anymore. We got women cops. You aren’t the only Jewish cop either.”

“No,” Flip says. “I’m not.” He doesn’t touch his necklace, doesn’t glance down to look at it, but he’s consciously, suddenly, that it’s there and visible. (Been three, four years on that, too, since the Klansman case, and mostly he’s able to not think about it, but sometimes he still does. Sometimes he still tucks it under his shirt. Sometimes—)

“People don’t have to worry about hiding who they are so much these days.”

“Mmm.”

“And I’m not asking this from the goodness of my heart,” Ron continues. “But if this O’Malley thing is cropping up again, I gotta be able to cover your ass, and for me to cover your ass, I gotta know what I’m stepping into here. You know that I’m here for you, Flip. You know that I’ve got your back, just like you’ve got mine. You know that.”

“I know that,” Flip says, without looking up. “Always have.” He’s counting the number of boxes on each of the storage racks, checking absently to make sure everything is in order, sometimes the rookies fuck up the filing—

“So I’m asking just so we’re clear,” Ron says. “And I ain’t gonna think different of you, and I’m never gonna breathe a word of this again. I’m not gonna commit this to paper, I’m never gonna talk to another person about it, not even Patrice. I mean, you remember all the talks we had after the thing with the KKK wrapped up, when I was trying to get my head on straight, get the thing with her sorted, figure out where the hell we were gonna go from there, what was gonna happen with my work and hers and all that. Whether we were gonna be together or whether she was gonna pitch me out on my ass for being…well. You know. You supported my ass through that, Flip, and I’m gonna support yours here now. You told me not to cross those lines, and then you had my back when I did anyway. You remember that?”

“I do.” They could stand to organize the shelves a bit better, that’s for sure, especially if they’re cramming the boxes in three, four across—

“You got a thing for Gabriel O’Malley?” Ron asks.

—Flip loses count of the boxes.

It would have been easier to lie if Ron hadn’t made eye contact, if Ron had done him the courtesy of staring at the shelves over Flip’s shoulder, or looking down at his own shoes, or looking out into the hall or something, but that isn’t the kind of man Ron is. That isn’t the kind of friendship they have. Ron looks him right in the eye as he says it, and there isn’t a damn thing Flip can say in response.

“Alright, then,” Ron says, after a moment. “You gonna help me with these papers, or just stand there and tell me I’m an asshole for getting this far behind?”

Flip reaches wordlessly for half the stack, starts sorting. His mouth is dry, his stomach twisted, but putting papers in order helps loosen it up a bit.

Not enough to speak—but he doesn’t trust his own voice right now, and either way, there’s not much to say, is there.

* * *

It used to be Flip needed a six-pack every night just to function, but the ashes of the sawmill have long since cooled and he can’t drink like that anymore. Now three beer give him a hell of a headache come morning, and the office coffee isn’t doing that much to take the edge off it—mostly, it’s just reminding him that he should have had something for breakfast, at least grabbed poptarts on the way out, eaten them cold on the way to the station.

“You look like shit,” Ron says when Flip settles gracelessly into his desk, chair creaking under him.

“Thanks,” Flip says dryly. He leans back in his chair, tosses a stack of a couple files onto the desk, careful to make the gesture look casual while making sure none of the information inside any of the files makes its way out of the folders. Well, out of the bottom folder at least. It’s the only one that matters. “It’s the job.”

“You missed cookies in the breakroom,” Ron continues.

Flip shrugs. “Wasn’t hungry.” Hopes his stomach doesn’t grumble while he says it, because he is starting to get hungry, now that the hangover is receding a bit—but ducking down to the file room while everybody else was scavenging cookies was about the only chance he had of grabbing the O’Malley file without anybody realizing he was after it. It’s not like he’s re-opening the case. There’s nothing to open it over. Sawmill’s burnt, criminal’s gone back to New York, it’s three years in the past, and there ain’t nothing going on there. He’s got actual shit to work on.

He just wanted to look at it again. That’s all.

* * *

File’s still on his desk at the end of the day. Flip’s just contemplating whether he can slide the file into his bag now, or whether he’s gotta wait for the office to clear out, when a shadow falls over his desk. He looks up.

“Thinking I’d have a beer tonight,” Ron says. “You wanna swing by? Looks like you need it.”

Flip hesitates—but he’s got nothing going on back at his place except pacing around the apartment, distracting himself with whatever’s on tv, and lying down to sleep only to wake up gasping with fire in his eyes and smoke in his lungs three hours later. Nothing he can’t put off until later. “Yeah, sure. Sure, I can stop by for a bit.”

“Great,” Ron says. “Niece is around after school, so watch your mouth when you’re over.”

“Course,” Flip says. “How old’s she now, four?”

“Six,” Ron says proudly. “Real smart, too.”

“You must not have influenced her any on that one,” Flip says, then ducks when Ron laughs and swats at him. “I’ll swing by when I’m done here.”

“Sure thing.”

Flip waits until Ron’s out of the room before he exhales, goes back to pretending to do paperwork. Really, he’s just shuffling through everything, sorting things into meaningless piles, leaving the O’Malley file until right at the end—and then sweeping it into his bag as he stands up, casually shoves his chair back in. He leaves the remnants of his coffee in the cup, messes his desk up a bit with his hand so it doesn’t look too organized. Rests his hand briefly on the mustard-yellow phone, and then knocks a pencil off his desk deliberately, crouches down to get it.

The phone’s still plugged in. Flip doesn’t hesitate, just unplugs it. It hasn’t rung again since yesterday, and he doesn’t want nightshift picking it up in case they try to make something out of nothing.

He’ll plug it back in again when he comes in.

It’s his problem anyways.

* * *

Flip raps on the door of the apartment sharply, gets Ron’s raised eyebrow when the door finally opens.

“You come here straight from work?” Ron asks.

“Yeah,” Flip says.

“Get lost on the way over?”

Flip shrugs, glances down the hall by impulse. They’re alone, but it’s hard to say who might be listening. “Got hung up on a couple things.”

“Uh huh,” Ron says. He walks over to the fridge, grabs a beer and a Coke, opens them both. Passes the beer over to Flip, and gestures for him to come inside. “Natalia’s just in the other room colouring. What’s got you looking over your shoulder like that?”

Flip hesitates, settles on the easiest explanation, the one that doesn’t involve any theories. Just facts. “Thought someone was following me out of the precinct.”

Ron just nods like it’s the most logical thing Flip could have said. “Where’d you lose them?”

He’s always appreciated that about Ron. Ron takes it all at face value, doesn’t dig into shit like whether or not Flip has been sleeping—he hasn’t—or whether he’s been drinking—no more than usual, and nothing like he had been after the sawmill fire. Ron is practical about this as he is with everything, and, consequently, the only person that Flip is safe to be honest around.

“Couple blocks away,” Flip says, glancing back at the apartment door to make sure it’s shut securely. “They weren’t very good.”

“Make any new friends lately?”

“No more than usual.” Flip leans back against the counter. From here, he can just barely see Ron’s niece, kneeling down in the living room in front of the tv, crayons spread out in front of her on the coffee table. She’s bigger now than she was the last time Flip saw her, and he’s trying to remember how long it’s been—he doesn’t think it’s been a year, yet, but maybe it has been, and he just hasn’t been paying attention. Maybe this is how fast kids normally grow. He wouldn’t know, isn’t likely to know, he wouldn’t—

“Phone of yours ring again?”

Flip shakes his head, takes a drink of his Coors. Nice of Ron, to stock what Flip likes even though Ron himself will take ages to go through a six-pack on his own. “Dead silent. Unplugged it when I left just to be sure.”

“Mmm,” Ron says. He takes a drink of his Coke, gestures Flip into the living room. Sits down on the couch, closest to Natalia, adjusts the volume on the tv a bit so they’ll still be able to talk.

“It’s probably nothing,” Flip says, hovering in the entrance so he doesn’t have to come into the living room proper. “You saw the quality of sh—stuff he was trying to fence last time around. It’ll be like that this time too. Fake watches, counterfeit cash…”

“...a bridge,” Ron adds.

Flip chuckles in spite of himself. “He was so sincere about that one, too.”

“In his defense,” Ron says, “it sounded like a fine bridge.” He wipes the condensation off his bottle with his thumb. “And today was the first day you’d heard from him since the fire?”

“Yup.”

“And you haven’t been calling New York?”

Flip scowls. “The f—no, Ron, I haven’t been _calling New York_. I haven’t put two seconds into thinking about this since you told me you’d heard he lived.” Flip can feel his ears heat up then, the memory of his reaction rushing in and making him wish he hadn’t said a goddamn thing about it, because he doesn’t like to think about that, doesn’t like to think about that at all—

—but Ron doesn’t mention it, just moves forward. “That’s a long time to go without contact. I’m sure he’s just scraping the bottom of the barrel, like you said.”

“That’s not what I said,” Flip retorts.

Ron just grins at him, leans forward a little. “Natalia?”

“Yeah?” she responds.

“You remember my buddy Flip, right?”

She glances up at him, and then nods.

“Alright if he sits down to visit here, or should we go visit in the kitchen?”

She scrunches her nose up, and Flip feels something contract in his chest. “He can sit,” she allows, and then points. “Over there, cuz he’s big.”

“That’s fine,” Flip says immediately, comes into the living room and sits on the end of the couch, furthest away from the coffee table. Takes a drink of his beer to distract himself from thinking about Gabriel O’Malley, because that’s not a productive conversation, and he’d rather think about literally anything else.

“What kind of car was it?” Ron asks. “That held you up after work.” His tone is light, but his eyes are serious.

It’s a good conversation shift. “Nineteen sixties Oldsmobile convertible,” Flip answers. “Navy, but beat up. Long scrape on the passenger side, dent in the trunk. License plate had mud on it, couldn’t identify the plates.”

“Hasn’t rained in a while.”

“Nope.”

“It’s s’posed to rain tomorrow,” Natalia says.

“Well, that’s good, then,” Ron says. “Get everybody’s cars all washed up nice, so we can see what we need to see.” He takes a drink, leans back. “Noticed it when you were halfway here?”

“Nah, right out of the precinct,” Flip says. “Idling down the street, but didn’t pull out till I’d driven past. Good view of the precinct from there.”

“Well,” Ron says. “Maybe I’ll swing by tomorrow, check things out.”

“Alright,” Flip says. “Let me know if you find anything.” He takes another drink of his beer, watches Natalia colouring. Lets himself zone out a bit, lets his heart-rate go down. When one of the pencil crayons rolls off the edge of the coffee table, he doesn’t even need to think before he leans forward, snatches it up, and then sets it back down before Natalia even notices it’s missing. When he settles back into the couch, he realizes Ron is watching him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Ron says, taking another drink of his Coke. “I didn’t say anything, Zimmerman.”

“You were thinking it, though.”

“Wasn’t.”

“You know it’s not in the cards for me.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Any of this,” Flip says, and he feels his face flush again. “No matter what, it’s not…it just isn’t.” And he doesn’t want it to be either—he likes his solitude, and being alone in the bed, and not having to come home right after work if he doesn’t want to, and not having to watch his language at home—it’s just that, in a different world, this could have been him, too. If he’d had family he was close with, brothers or sisters with kids he could maybe watch when he got the urge to look after something for a bit, just do things without any subterfuge. Things that were honest. Things that didn’t require him to be somebody else, because what the hell was a kid gonna care whether Flip liked—

“Did you wanna colour?” Natalia asks. “I have extra paper.”

Flip blinks at her.

“Better pass me a sheet too,” Ron says. “Somebody’s gotta show Flip how to do it, I’m not sure he knows how.”

* * *

Flip’s just rinsing his beer bottle out, setting the washed bottle down on Ron’s counter, and tucking his colouring page into his bag next to the O’Malley file, when Ron stops him at the door.

“Hey,” Ron says, voice soft. “About this Gabriel O’Malley thing.”

“What about it?” Flip asks. He wants to be belligerent about it, but can’t quite muster it. “I know I messed it up, but…”

“Nothing like that,” Ron says lightly, tapping his knuckles against Flip’s arm. “All I wanted to say was that I’ll poke around a bit next week, see if he’s trying to contact anybody around here. You can just do your thing, alright? No reason to plug the phone back in if you don’t wanna, I’ll take it from here.”

“Thanks,” Flip says, a sense of relief washing over him. “I appreciate it, Ron. It’s messing with me, a bit.”

“S’alright. I got this.”

“You always do.”

“Hey,” Ron says. “Partners, remember?”

“This isn’t a police thing,” Flip says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ron responds. “Still counts.”

Flip nods, exhales, and feels the tension start to creep out of his shoulders. It’s a good thing Ron was there when he got the call. At least now Flip’s not drowning in it on his own. “Thanks.” He hesitates, tries to find some words. Fails, miserably. “I needed this,” he says, finally, aware of exactly how pitiful it sounds, and not able to bring himself to mind, because Ron just smiles at him like he gets it, and that’s what he wanted, right there.

He doesn’t have a brother. But Ron’s probably better than what Flip would have ended up with if he had.

* * *

The week passes, as weeks do. Flip doesn’t necessarily settle into it, but he adjusts his routine. Varies his route to work every morning, picks a different route home every evening. Plugs the phone in when he arrives, unplugs it before he leaves. Tucks the O’Malley file underneath all the other papers in his desk at home, and does his best not to think about it. Tapes the colouring book page to his fridge.

It’s the first thing he’s changed in his apartment in a really long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Warnings:** Flip has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it PTSD flashback with a fire and an oxygen mask | the implication is that the baby is stolen; he's not, but Flip doesn't know that | Flip had briefly thought that his actions had led to Gabe's death; they hadn't, and he knows that now, but he still thinks about it | Flip went through a rough patch when he was drinking heavily prior to the story beginning; he's doing better now | 
> 
> **Acknowledgements:** This fic owes a lot of things to a lot of people.
> 
> To Jeu, who came up with the headcanon of Stensland being a Zimmalley child, thus piquing my curiosity as to how, exactly, that might have come about.
> 
> To agnosiabeforecoffee, who helped me out with a ton of research that didn’t make it directly into the fic, but nevertheless impacted the way that I wrote it. (Any mistakes I’ve made, and I’m sure there are many, are completely my own.)
> 
> To for_autumn_I_am, who read the initial draft of this piece as I was drafting it, and advised me that it was, in fact, a story, and I should keep it up.
> 
> To deadsy, who encouraged me through this, talked me off a number of cliffs, watched the movies with me multiple times, and who also did all the beta work.
> 
> And, finally, to fauxtalian, who offered to do art for the fic, and consequently has blessed the fic with /so much art/ and I am just absolutely delighted that everyone else can look at it as well, now.
> 
>  **Story Notes:** I made up Ron's niece wholesale, sorry about that. *shrugs*
> 
> (And if it's not in the cards, Flip, it's because you haven't looked at the deck.)
> 
> I made a blog post for this chapter, and it's [available here](https://heyktula.wordpress.com/2020/01/17/an-avenue-by-any-other-name-chapter-one/).
> 
> Chapters will go up weekly, so I'll see everyone next Friday!
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), though I do have [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).


	2. Fool Me Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flip returns to his apartment.
> 
> He's not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again!
> 
> The chapter notes are down at the bottom.
> 
> The art for this chapter is done by the wonderful [Fauxtalian](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1)!

There’s a scrape on Flip’s door, just by the lock. It’s the kind of thing he wouldn’t normally look for, but he’s already on high alert. He’d spent the entire drive home keeping an eye on his rearview mirror making sure that he wasn’t being followed, same as he’s been doing for the last ten days or so. And he wasn’t followed—but there’s a scrape on his apartment door.

He puts his keys back into the pocket of his jeans, digs around like he’s still looking for them, just in case anyone anyone comes into the hall. Runs the thumb of his other hand carefully along the scrape. The scrape feels fresh, little pieces of wood digging into his skin. Like it happened recently.

Fuck.

He takes his keys out again, slides them into the lock. They go in easy, so at least there’s nothing broken off inside the lock itself. Flip takes his shoes off in the hall, eases the door open, and slips into the apartment, nudging his shoes in quietly. He scans the apartment, closing the door as silently as possible behind him.

The apartment doesn’t look ransacked. It doesn’t even look like he’s been robbed—his balcony door is still intact, and slid shut, and it doesn’t look as though anyone has been through his kitchen looking for his knives. The dining room table hasn’t been touched, his mail hasn’t been rifled through. He can hear the TV—it’s on, quietly, broadcasting static instead of a channel. Flip takes a step into his kitchen, and then another, past the stove and the fridge until he can peer around the corner, look into the living room, where there’s—

—there’s a mop of bright orange, horrifically familiar hair, just barely visible on the arm of his couch. An empty glass on the coffee table. A set of shoes on the carpet in front of the couch. Flip takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment.

(Smoke, and fire, and the heat on his face as he ran back into the building, every breath like he was inhaling flames. He couldn’t yell loud enough for Gabriel to be able to hear him, he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to even whisper the man’s name, couldn’t get far enough in the building to be able to find him—)

Flip exhales, hard. His stomach keeps falling long after his exhalation has finished. Part of him isn’t surprised, part of him isn’t surprised at all, because this feels inevitable, in a way—like something that was bound to happen, inevitable right from the first moment they ever saw each other. Gabriel O’Malley has always turned up when Flip least expected him to, and this is the logical conclusion to the phone call, this is the logical escalation, this is—

—Gabriel is snoring.

It’s not just that Gabriel O’Malley has broken into Flip’s apartment to watch his tv, drink his milk, and lie on his couch.

He’s actually fallen asleep there.

There’s something tight in Flip’s chest that he doesn’t particularly like. His doctor tells him it’s a panic attack, that there’s nothing physically wrong with his heart, but he brings his hand up to his neck anyway, put his fingers on the pulse in his neck, tries to get a read on it. It’s faster than he’d like, faster than he wants, but it’s steady. It’s not clenching.

It’s not stopped.

Gabriel makes an oddly vulnerable noise in his sleep. Flip wants to go stare at him, hover his hand over his mouth to feel his breaths, confirm he’s alive. He hasn’t seen him since the fire. He has no idea if he sustained any injuries there or since.

_You got a thing for Gabriel O’Malley?_

Flip forces himself to move, step back into the kitchen. Stop staring. He doesn’t bother to be terribly quiet, because this will be easier if Gabriel is awake. He’s never seen Gabriel sleeping, but he’s seen Gabriel just after he’s woken up, messy hair and shirt askew, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, accent almost unintelligible.

(Flip had always assumed that was part of his cover, the accent on top and the accent Flip always suspected lay underneath it, the secret one that he wanted to learn about. He never got close enough to Gabriel during that case to know any of that. He wanted to. It was just—they didn’t have _time_.)

He opens the fridge. Cracks himself a beer. Takes a sip of it standing in his sock feet in his own kitchen, staring at the little bit of Gabriel’s hair that’s just barely visible on the arm of his couch.

Gabriel’s hair looks like it hasn’t been washed in a while. It’s matted in places, darker than what Flip remembers it being. Greasy. O’Malley should have cleaned himself up before he came here. It would have been conspicuous, him coming into the building looking like this, with the kind of apartment Flip lives in. It’s nothing special, but it’s decent, and people notice things, on occasion.

(People also don’t notice things, which is one of the things Flip likes about it. He’s been here for years, and outside of an occasional nod and smile with his downstairs neighbour, her kid, or her roommate, he doesn’t need to interact with anybody here. It’s just that the break-in job on his apartment looks sloppy, and people probably would have noticed. He—hasn’t yet decided what he’s going to do about it. Maybe nothing. Maybe he’s just going to do nothing.)

He comes around into the living room quietly, rounding the back side of the couch so he can delay looking at O’Malley’s face. When he gets to the other side, he leans against the wall of the apartment. Stares at Gabriel’s sock feet. The socks are slightly dirty. The shoes themselves are on the floor, one upside down, one right-side up. The pants are tan, slightly flared at the ankles, but tight on Gabriel’s thighs. There’s something smeared across his right thigh. He can’t really tell what it is, but it looks unpleasant. Not blood. But...not nice.

There’s a worn piece of paper on the edge of Flip’s coffee table. He takes a couple steps forward, picks up the piece of paper. Retreats back to the wall. Carefully opens up the paper.

It’s a list of addresses. All of them are local. They’re also all crossed out. Flip runs his finger down the paper, thinks about each address a moment. He hasn’t been to any of them in recent memory, but they’re all—orphanages, or foster care places. Shelters. Each one crossed off, eliminated.

There’s one address at the bottom of the page that hasn’t been crossed off yet. It’s Flip’s own.

Flip frowns, turns the paper over. There’s something on the other side of the paper that looks like an additional address—but the pencil is smeared and smudged, blurred from thumbprints and the friction of being kept in a tight pocket, rubbing against denim and fabric. All Flip can make out is _—ensland_ , and that’s not enough information to tell him anything.

He folds the piece of paper up the way it was folded before, leans forward, gives it an underhanded toss back onto the coffee table. Goes back to the wall, picks up his open beer from where he’d set it on the floor. Drinks. Looks back at Gabriel O’Malley, the length of him sprawled out. Socks, pants, polyester shirt. Flip can smell the sweat-stink of him now that he’s a little bit closer. Gabriel’s got his arms up on his chest, cradling whatever stolen goods he’s trying to fence next to his heart. As though Flip wants them. As though Flip is going to try and steal something out of Gabriel’s arms while Gabriel is sleeping. As though—

The shirt is long-sleeved, dark blue. There are trees on it, and maybe that’s the style in New York, but Gabriel stands out like a sore thumb here. His clothes make him look like he doesn’t belong. His clothes make Flip uncomfortable for him, for the way that he stands out, but it’s safer to focus on the clothes because the only thing Flip hasn’t really looked at yet is Gabriel’s face. He could leave his apartment, and walk around the block until the sun sets, and still not be ready to—

—it doesn’t matter.

The bundle in Gabriel’s arms shifts, and snuffles.

It’s a baby.

It’s a fucking _baby_.

It’s bundled up in white blankets and something that’s made out of purple and mint paisley that might be another one of Gabriel’s shirts, and it was entirely covered up until just now, but now that it’s made that odd little—snuffling noise, it’s shifted a little, and Flip can see hair poking out the one end, and the little hint of a toe poking out the other. His chest is doing that thing again, but worse now, and he hasn’t even looked at Gabriel’s face yet, and maybe at this rate, he just—won’t be able to.

Flip closes his eyes, leans back against the wall of his apartment. It’s been almost three years. Three years where he convinced himself that he’d been responsible for Gabriel’s death, so the dreams didn’t matter—but then the dreams had gotten strange, and he’d almost started to convince himself that he hadn’t been responsible for any of it, that Gabriel’d done something to Flip, manipulated him in some way. That Flip had spent too much time spent leaning into Gabriel’s presence, that there were too many of Gabriel’s hidden smiles and small brushes of his fingertips on Flip’s arm. There had been a constant threat that they might be able to become closer, that there might be more between the two of them, that it was almost like Gabriel was officially working as an informant for them, like he was collecting information and communicating to Flip in a barely raised eyebrow that there was more there, there was more for him to share, there was more—

—and then Flip had skipped out on one of their meetings, and the sawmill had gone up in flames, and everything had been a nightmare, but three years ago, it had felt like this could be the start of something. Like Gabriel and Flip could pick up where they’d left off the moment that Flip slipped on the jacket of his cover identity and Gabriel switched into his Colorado clothes instead of his New York ones, but now?

Gabriel O’Malley has broken into Flip’s apartment with a stolen baby, and Flip has no idea what to do.

* * *

It’s two hours later when the baby lets out a little wail, and Gabriel chokes on a snore, hands going immediately to the baby’s back as he sits up, eyes bleary and hair messy, murmuring something in a voice so soft that all Flip catches is the lilt of it, even though he’s leaning forward from where he’s sitting on the floor, trying to hear the words.

(Have Gabriel’s hands always been that narrow and delicate?)

With his head ducked down to the baby’s, lips murmuring something into the baby’s ear, lank hair falling down over his face, there’s something about Gabriel that’s just—

Gabriel looks up.

Flip freezes exactly where he is, beer halfway to his mouth, caught staring at them both and absolutely unable to look away.

“Been there a while, have you,” Gabriel says softly. The baby is cradled tight to his shoulder, and his hand is splayed over the kid’s back.

Flip can’t speak.

Gabriel nods at the floor beside Flip. Flip looks down at the empty beer bottle there, and then to the second nearly-empty one that he’s holding. He should set it down, but it doesn’t feel like any of his muscles are connected to his brain right now.

“Yeah,” he says, finally. “I have.”

Gabriel’s face doesn’t change. It stays flat, neutral. “Are they on their way?”

Flip stares at him. He’d forgotten Gabriel’s half-lidded eyes, how the drowsy look never really quite faded from him completely. How much Flip liked it.

Likes it.

“Your buddies,” Gabriel clarifies. “The police.”

Flip shakes his head. “Haven’t called.” He brings the bottle up to his lips, drains the rest of it, and sets it back down on the floor, next to the other. “Won’t call,” he adds, after a moment.

“Well, then,” Gabriel says, ducking his head and letting his hair fall down over his face. “That’s kind of you.” He shifts the baby in his grip. “Like I said on the phone…”

Right. The baby.

Flip swallows, gets up from the floor. Picks up his empties, and heads for the kitchen. “You can’t fence a baby,” he says without bothering to turn back. “I don’t know what kind of fucking—”

“No,” Gabriel protests. “I’m not—it was just for the call, I was just—”

Flip turns, only to find that Gabriel is right there, cradling the kid to his chest like a shield.

“—making it sound good,” Gabriel finishes, voice flattened out again. “I’m in trouble, if you hadn’t noticed, I just—”

“What are you even doing here?”

Gabriel takes a step back, tilts his head. “Where else was I going to go?”

And it’s awful, the entire thing, because Flip knows in his gut that he would have offered his apartment up if Gabriel hadn’t taken it without asking, that he would have wanted to meet up even if Gabriel had been honest on the phone about the reason why, that he would have—that he just—that he wants—

(The baby is sleeping peacefully, curled up against Gabriel’s chest, and Flip’s chest is tight, his heart pounding hard.)

“The necklace is a good look on you,” Gabriel says. “Wasn’t sure what it was, a couple of years back. If it was part of your undercover thing, which I guess it isn’t. Star of David. It’s nice.”

“I need to get out of here,” Flip says. The apartment is too small for all three of them, and the baby’s hair is red-blonde, just like Gabriel’s, and it’s snuffling at Gabriel’s neck like it’s looking for something. Gabriel can’t provide it and Flip can’t provide it and Flip doesn’t know anybody who can and—

“Ah,” Gabriel says. He sounds almost disappointed.

The baby makes an odd little chirping sound, and then starts to whimper against Gabriel’s chest.

“You can stay,” Flip says hurriedly. “Just—just for an hour or two. I have to duck out for an errand. You can shower when I get back.”

“Right,” Gabriel says, shifting on the balls of his feet, trying to settle the baby.

A piercing wail follows Flip as he leaves his own apartment, shoulders up around his ears.

It’s not a retreat.

* * *

He calls Ron from a payphone outside the mall.

“Flip? Things alright?”

“Yeah,” Flip says. “Yeah, yeah.” He hesitates, looks at the pile of groceries in his car. All stupid shit—a bunch of fruit he’ll never eat before it goes bad, lettuce that will wilt into liquid that he’ll end up pouring into the trash in a month, cereal and milk and formula and a bunch of other crap from the mall that he doesn’t actually need and won’t use, things that won’t be needed, and it’s not like him to just—do something like this. “Well,” Flip says. Hesitates. “Gabriel O’Malley is in my apartment.”

Ron sucks in a breath on the other end of the line, but his voice is steady when he speaks. “That so.”

“It’s fine,” Flip says. “He’s unarmed.” That’s probably a lie, now that he thinks of it. It’s more likely that Flip just hasn’t seen the gun, because he didn’t look for it, which is another lapse in professionalism right there. He should have disarmed Gabriel—but there’s no way to do that without touching him, and touching him is…not an option. He’s not going to admit that to Ron. He’ll just stick to the lie. “We’re just chatting.”

Ron doesn’t ask about what, so Flip doesn’t need to fabricate anything. “Do you need backup?”

“Nah,” Flip says. He looks at the pile of stuff in his car. Considers what he does need. Throws out most of the things he wants to ask for. “Might…well. Could you check into something for me? Not officially.”

“Course I could, and yeah, not officially.”

“I need you not to panic at this.”

“I’m cool as a cucumber.”

“I need to know if there’s any missing babies.”

“...alright, that wasn’t where I saw this conversation going.”

Flip briefly contemplates just hanging up. Shifts in the phone booth, checks out of habit to make sure nobody is watching him particularly closely.

“Missing babies,” Ron says. “This a local thing?”

“Between here and New York?” Flip asks, cringing the moment the words escape his mouth.

“Alright. If I was gonna guess at the description of the baby…”

“White,” Flip says. “Blonde hair.” He stares out of the phone booth, hating himself a little. “…kinda reddish, I guess. In certain lights.”

“Right,” Ron says. “I won’t call your apartment if I find anything?”

“That’d be for the best,” Flip agrees. “I should get going here.”

“Let me know if you need to take a couple days.”

“I won’t. See you Monday.”

“See you then.”

* * *

There’s a beaten-up convertible parked down the block from Flip’s apartment, with mud on the license plate, and someone’s personal belongings in the backseat.

Flip ignores it.

* * *

The apartment is quiet when he gets back. Flip sets the groceries down on the kitchen table, looks over his shoulder. A quick glance into the living room indicates it’s empty—so Flip gathers everything else up, heads for the bedroom, all the while fighting that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades like all of this was a mistake, like there’s nothing good that’s going to come of it. Like Gabriel and the baby are already gone, and that renders the entire interaction something Flip imagined, which means he’ll have to have an awkward conversation about it with Ron, because that phone call definitely happened, and the only thing he’ll have to show from this is a sense that he’s failed, in some way, in doing something that he was supposed to do, because the apartment is empty and—

The apartment isn’t empty. The baby is asleep on his bed, on top of the blankets. There’s a pillow placed on either side of the kid, giving it enough space to roll over, but not enough to fall off the bed. Well. Its eyes are closed, but it’s making weird faces, mouth screwing up and nose scrunching, like it’s trying to decide whether or not it’s going to scream.

Flip isn’t surprised, just disappointed.

He should have expected Gabriel to fuck off.

Rather—he shouldn’t have expected O’Malley to stay. That’s never been how Gabriel O’Malley has functioned. Even back when Flip thought he knew him, O’Malley used to slip in and out of things like some kind of ghost, both _there_ and _not-there_ at the same time, silent unless he wanted you to know he was present. Flip could have walked right next to him in the hall and not noticed him if Gabriel didn’t want him to see—and the baby would have made that kind of movement, that kind of presence, impossible, so this isn’t really—this isn’t really surprising.

Flip walks further into the bedroom, sets the rest of his ill-advised purchases down on the foot of the bed. It doesn’t feel like his hands belong to him. It doesn’t feel like his _body_ belongs to him. It’s like he’s watching someone else move him around, so in that sense, it doesn’t seem that unusual that he’s walking up to the head of the bed, because maybe that person knows what to do when the baby takes a gasping little breath and screws its face up further, maybe that person knows what to do—

—fucking hell, the baby weighs nothing when he picks it up, and its head is so small in the palm of his hand. Flip cradles the baby against his chest the same way he used to hold Natalia when she was younger and would let him, and it—it actually settles there, nuzzling into his neck. He rocks slowly back and forth, from side to side, remembering. Ducks his head down to the baby’s and inhales that sweet-warm-clean scent. It makes his chest clench up all over again, makes him feel—possessive, and jealous, and a bunch of petty, shitty emotions. He’s overwhelmed by the sense that he has to do what is _right_ here. Red hair or not, he can’t see Gabriel as this child’s father, he can’t see him as anything other than the criminal he is, but the child he stole still smells like summer and potential and a wide-open future and Flip can give this baby that, Flip can give them—

“Look a’ the two of you,” O’Malley says, voice soft. “Knew this was the right choice, coming here.”

Flip looks up—and freezes.

Gabriel isn’t dressed. His face is clean-shaven, cheekbones sharp and angular and exposed now that his hair is pushed back, dripping slowly down onto his bare shoulders. He’s shirtless, chest and nipples visible, soft stomach bared to Flip’s gaze even though Flip wasn’t ready to see any of that. Not now. Not yet. He’s wearing one of Flip’s towels wrapped around his waist—the same one Flip had used that morning—and it’s not as snug as it should be, exposes a hint of his hipbone. His feet are bare. His fingernails are clean.

“These for me?” Gabriel asks.

He’s already standing at the foot of the bed, picking through the purchases there, and of course, he’s found the clothing immediately. Jogging pants, and a couple of tshirts. Nothing in Flip’s size, because Flip didn’t buy them for himself. He bought them for—he bought them because—

“They look small for you,” Gabriel continues. He has long fingers, and narrow hands.

Flip doesn’t speak. Can’t speak. He shuts his eyes just in time to hear the soft sound of the towel hitting the floor. Tips his head down against the baby’s, listens to Gabriel getting dressed while breathing in the sweet scent of the baby’s hair. He doesn’t open his eyes again until he feels Gabriel’s breath on his cheek, senses more than sees Gabriel’s hands reaching for the baby.

“No,” Flip says, startling them both.

Gabriel tilts his head, looks at him curiously.

There’s water soaking through the shoulders of the tshirt, from his hair. Flip shouldn’t have bought him a white shirt, and had misjudged the size anyway—a size down from what Flip wears hadn’t been enough, and the neck of the shirt is exposing more collarbone than it should. He looks smaller than Flip remembered him being. He looks…he looks…

Gabriel is still looking at him.

“You said you were in trouble,” Flip says.

His mouth twitches at the corner. One shoulder rises, almost imperceptibly. “I am.”

“Let me take this from you.” He doesn’t realize he’d intended to do it until now, but the moment he says it, it sounds like something he’d planned the entire time. “I’ll handle it.”

Gabriel narrows his eyes, tilts his head.

“I’ll handle it,” Flip repeats.

“So it’s like that, then,” Gabriel says, sounding—resigned, maybe, or a little bit sad. “Well. I’ll be out of your hair, then, Flip Zimmerman.”

The polite thing to do would be to explain that it isn’t like that, it’s only that Flip has connections—that he can take a couple days off to get things sorted out, find somewhere for the kid to stay. That, fine, they don’t pay him much, but he doesn’t do much, doesn’t need much, and he can float this until they find the poor kid’s parents. That no harm will come to the kid while the kid’s here, instead of—wherever Gabriel is staying. But with the look on Gabriel’s face, Flip can’t say any of it.

“Probably for the best anyway,” Gabriel is saying. He’s still standing too close. He hasn’t moved away. “It was nice seeing you again. It’d been a while, I’d wondered how you were. Won’t be a problem for you any longer. You won’t hear from me again.”

And then, before Flip has even begun to process that particular statement, Gabriel has leaned over and pressed dry lips against Flip’s cheek—not the baby’s, just Flip’s—and then turned and left the apartment just as silently as he had entered.

* * *

Flip takes a couple days off work, gets everything sorted out. Goes back the following Monday.

He doesn’t get any calls on the yellow phone on his desk.

And he doesn’t get any calls in his apartment.

It is, for all intents and purposes, handled.

* * *

“Flip,” Ron calls from across the office, brandishing a stack of papers. “Walk with me.”

Flip nods, gets up from his desk, unplugging the yellow phone as he does.

(Nobody answers that but him. Nobody is going to answer that but him.)

Ron briefs him on a bunch of shit he already knows, because he was in that meeting this morning, even if he was sleep-deprived and probably didn’t look like he was paying attention, but it’s once they get down to the file room, and Ron boots the junior detective out, that they actually start talking about the thing that Flip cares about.

(Curious, is all.)

“So I’m not giving you this file,” Ron starts out, and he taps his fingers on the folder that he’s got on top of the stack. It’s a folder exactly the same as the other folders he’s carrying. Maybe a bit newer. “And I need you to respect that.”

“...alright,” Flip says.

“I’m telling you the result of the investigation,” Ron says. “This is part of the O’Malley thing. The baby.”

“I figured.”

Ron takes a deep breath, considers a moment. “There’s no follow up on this.”

Flip forces himself to stay leaning against the wall, but gets a cigarette out so he has something to do with his hands. “Then I’m gonna need the file so that I can do my own—”

“No,” Ron says forcefully, his voice still soft. “There is no follow up on this, because there’s nothing to follow up on.” He swallows. “I’m not giving you the details, because you’re not going to like them. But there are three concrete things that are coming out of this file that I’m going to tell you. The first is that there is no mother, there is no father, that is going to come after that baby. The second is that there is no living family that is going to come after that baby. And the third thing is that O’Malley had nothing to do with it. He did his best, and his best in this situation appears to be somewhat better than what _best_ usually entails for him.” Ron looks up, meets Flip’s eyes.

Flip looks away, focuses on lighting his cigarette. It takes him a minute, but that’s fine, because Ron isn’t talking, so he has time. The smoke feels good in his lungs, and he holds it in there for a minute, trying to think. Trying to do anything except what he actually wants to do, which is head right home and pick up—

“I just need one thing from you,” Ron is saying. “I just wanna know what foster place the kid got dropped at. I want to just stick my head in there, make sure things are going okay, see if there’s anything the department can do for the kids there, this one included. That’s all.”

“Right,” Flip says.

“What place?” Ron asks.

Flip looks at him, and doesn’t say anything.

“You didn’t let O’Malley take an infant with him,” Ron says. “That’s not you, Flip.”

“No,” Flip agrees. “Wouldn’t have been a good idea.”

“Name the place.”

Flip exhales smoke.

“...the fuck did you do, Zimmerman.”

Flip takes another inhale on his cigarette. Doesn’t say anything. What’s he even going to say, really? How’s he going to explain this in a way that makes sense?

“You crazy son of a bitch,” Ron says, finally. “I know you’ve done something. Come on, spit it out.”

“Kid’s with my neighbour during the day,” Flip says, finally. “I pick him up at night, keep him with me. It’s been going fine. She’s all alone there except for her own kid, and a roommate that’s working two jobs. I pay her good money, it’s helping them out a bit. They seem happy enough with the arrangement.”

Ron is still staring at him.

“I should get back,” Flip says. “I got stuff at my desk.”

Ron is still staring at him.

“Thanks,” Flip says, reaching out and almost touching Ron’s arm, and then thinking better of it and taking his own cigarette instead, tapping it into the ashtray on the counter even though he wasn’t done smoking it yet. “For looking into that for me. I appreciate it.”

When he leans over, he can just barely catch Ron’s handwriting, pencilled on the front of the file, and subsequently erased. _Shooting, Stensland Ave, three dead inc perp_

Flip swallows, straightens up. Puts it out of his mind.

Ron’s muttering something as Flip leaves, but Flip doesn’t stay to decipher what it is.

* * *

When he gets back to his desk, he plugs the yellow phone back in, and then he sits there and waits for the end of the day. Shifts paperwork around on his desk a bit like he’s doing something, even though he isn’t. Makes a couple of useless phonecalls. Writes some notes. Maybe his career is stalling out a bit. Maybe he’s not that sharp in the mornings, when he can’t sleep for fire and smoke, hasn’t been able to since the sawmill—and maybe that’ll go away, and maybe it won’t. But he’s still here. He’s still got this.

Flip picks up some groceries for Carol and her kid on the way home. Inquires about the roommate when he’s picking up the baby, nods and commiserates at the shift changes she’s going through, and how hard they’ve been. Walks up the stairs to his apartment slower than usual, trying not to disturb the baby as he drools on Flip’s shoulder.

There’s a wrapped-up parcel lying on his kitchen table when he gets into his apartment. He unwraps it with one hand, bouncing slightly as he does to keep the kid asleep. With any luck, the formula will be warm by the time the kid wakes up. The parcel is wrapped in brown paper, and it tears as Flip tugs at it, revealing the edge of a stack of money, and a folded-up scrap of fabric.

Flip holds the fabric in the palm of his hand, carefully unfolds it. Inside, there’s a small gold cross. No chain.

_You won’t hear from me again_.

Once a liar, always a liar.

* * *

(He still can’t sleep worth shit—but the baby seems to appreciate being held in the middle of the night just as much as Flip appreciates holding him, so in that way, maybe they’re both a touch better off than they were before.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Notes:** Flip has a brief flashback to the fire | Flip uses 'it' pronouns for the baby initially; he's in denial and he'll get over it | Flip briefly dissociates | Flip also continues to think some rather uncharitable things about Gabriel | Flip keeps the baby, and doesn't give Gabriel much choice in the matter | no details given, but it's revealed that the baby's parents were shot, and that the shooter died in the incident as well |
> 
> And, there we are. Flip, my darling, my sweetheart, you did NOT handle that very gracefully.
> 
> There's a blog entry [over on my blog](https://wp.me/p9JFZd-2I) that discusses some of the background info for the piece.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), though I do have [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).


	3. Special Delivery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It doesn’t stop with the parcel on Flip's kitchen table.
> 
> The parcel on his kitchen table is only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay on this one! I was travelling today, and it destroyed my entire routine for the day.
> 
> Anyways, here we are. Content notes are, as always, at the bottom.
> 
> The art within is by the wonderful [Fauxtalian](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1)! We're super lucky--there's more than one illustration for this chapter!

It doesn’t stop with the parcel on his kitchen table.

The parcel on his kitchen table is only the beginning.

* * *

A few weeks later, there’s a package left outside the door of his apartment. Couple of diapers, unpackaged but new, and some pastel pink baby blankets so well-worn that they’re soft, smelling like they’d come from somebody’s house instead of a store. He wants it to be Ron, wants this to be a conversation they can have over coffee in the morning about how appreciative Flip is that Ron’s loaning some of Natalia’s baby things. (Specifically, he doesn’t want the alternative if—and when—it _isn’t_ Ron.)

But no matter how distracted Flip is in the morning—and this morning, it’s pretty bad, because the poor kid had fought Flip on the transition from Flip’s arms to Carol’s, and the screaming still rings in Flip’s ears even though Carol had assured him they’d be fine in ten or fifteen minutes, they’d be totally fine—he’s not distracted enough not to notice the way the bushes rustle when he finally gets outside, like somebody had been in them just a moment before.

(He very nearly asks Ron to look into it, but there’s no point, really. He doesn’t want his theory confirmed—and, anyway, Flip wasn’t followed on his way to the station today. He’d had a shit sleep. The nightmares have been bad.

(The noise in the bushes could have been birds.)

* * *

Later in the week, there’s a battered brown envelope left on the seat of his vehicle. He’s pretty fucking certain that he locked it when he parked, but the package is right there. (There are scratches in the paint, next to the lock—but Ron took Flip’s keys away from him more than once after the sawmill burnt down, and Flip is pretty sure he did that damage himself.) The envelope is on the back seat, like it’s something he’s not supposed to notice right away, but the car smells odd when he gets inside it, too. Nothing he can place, nothing bad, just…not like how it usually smells.

He picks up the envelope, takes it inside his apartment. He’s quiet when he opens the door, half-expecting somebody else to be there already—but the kitchen is empty, and so is the living room. Bathroom hasn’t been used since Flip got dressed this morning, and the bed is still unmade, exactly the way he left it. He leaves the envelope on the table, goes downstairs in his sock feet to pick the kid up from Carol’s.

He’s asleep this time, stirs only a little when Carol transfers him into Flip’s arms. Wakes up when Flip is making mac and cheese, his entire body turned away from the stove so that there’s no risk of the kid being splattered or anything. Kid’s grumpy even after a bottle of formula, but after he spits up on Flip’s shoulder, he calms down a little, flails his little fists in the air when Flip puts on a Kansas cassette for them to listen to while he eats his Kraft dinner out of the pot, sings along because the kid is calmer when Flip is talking to him, even though Flip has no idea why his voice would matter.

He opens the envelope after the kid is finally in bed. It’s an outfit, brand new with the tags still on it. A little set of overalls with a strawberry embroidered on the leg, a little matching plaid flannel shirt to go underneath. Flip turns the outfit over, like he’s expecting a card or something, but there isn’t one. There is, however, a spot on the back of the right leg cuff that’s been neatly snipped out.

He runs his fingers over that spot for a good five minutes, the loose threads kept in check by a row of small, neat handstitches, before he realizes that’s where the security tag would have been.

* * *

“Look at _you_ ,” Carol exclaims the next day. “Here, let me get a picture.”

“I don’t think—” Flip objects.

“It’ll just take a second,” Carol says. “Rae, where did you leave the camera?”

“Top of the fridge,” Rae calls back.

“There,” Carol says. “Here, make a face—there you go, look at that.”

“I’ve really gotta get going,” Flip says, but he holds onto the kid a couple minutes longer anyway, just because he can. Because Carol’s not rushing him.

He leaves the Polaroid on the passenger seat, leaves the vehicle unlocked. Parks a block away from the station.

When he comes back to the vehicle after his shift is done, the picture is gone.

(He almost regrets not getting another.)

* * *

The gifts keep escalating, and Flip keeps ignoring them. He still hasn’t dealt with the money, or with the small golden cross, and until he figures out what to do with those, it seems ridiculous to do anything about the clothes or the diapers or anything else. It’s just. They have what they need. Flip has what the kid needs, and O’Malley had promised he was going to fuck off, so Flip just…grits his teeth, and keeps moving forward with his day.

(It’s entirely too many stolen goods for Flip to have in his apartment, but maybe the goods are just like the baby.

Maybe there’s nobody coming after them either, and that’s enough to make Flip’s chest tighten again, so he tries not to think about it, and just lets the parcels pile up.)

* * *

It only took three years, but Flip has stopped dreaming of the fire.

Now, he just dreams about pulling Gabriel out of it, even though that never happened. He never had his arm around Gabriel’s chest, never had Gabriel’s head lolling on his shoulder, never put an oxygen mask over Gabriel’s flushed-red face. In reality, Flip had been the dummy with the oxygen mask, sitting on the tailgate of the ambulance trying to remember how to breathe again, trying to blink through the spots in his vision and talk through the rawness of his throat, he’d been the one—

(But in his dreams, it’s him pulling Gabriel out of the fire, hauling him out onto the grass, and slipping his hand under Gabriel’s dirty undershirt to make sure that his chest is still rising and falling. Touching Gabriel’s ribs. Skating his hand up higher.

(He wakes himself up before the dream continues.

(He doesn’t want to know how it concludes.)

* * *

He’s just chatting with Jimmy on the way back to their desks, shooting the shit about the game from last night, and everything is fine, everything is the most normal that it’s been in weeks. He’s in a good routine with the kid, nobody’s said shit to him at work, and he was able to get a couple of good cutting remarks in that earned him a high five on his way back to—

Only Ron is looking at him strangely, with the phone up to his ear, standing up to take the call even though he usually—

Flip traces the phone cord back to the desk it’s on, realizes that it’s not Ron’s phone.

It’s Flip’s.

It’s Flip’s phone, and Ron is answering it, and he’s got that _look_ on his face.

“Hold on one second,” Ron says. “He’s here now, I’ll pass you over.”

Flip takes the phone, plastic warm enough from Ron’s hand that he must have been there a while. “Hey, this is—”

“Mr. Zimmerman,” Carol says. “I’m so sorry to bother you at work.”

“It’s fine,” Flip says, sitting down in his chair and curling in on himself, thankful for the way that Ron parks himself on the corner of Flip’s desk, so nobody will have a line of sight to be able to read Flip’s lips while he gets this dealt with. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone here,” Carol says. “A friend of yours, quiet type, flat sort of a face.”

“In your apartment?” Flip asks cautiously.

“No, he went out for a smoke.”

Ron taps Flip’s hand, pushes a piece of paper across the desk. _doesn’t want cops called, doesn’t seem to be in any danger or anything, think curious more than anything but also confused_

The words are swimming in front of Flip’s eyes a bit, and he forces himself to focus.

“—about your height,” Carol is saying. “Lanky, red hair—”

“What’s he after?” Flip asks, stomach sinking as he realizes that this is all going to go away, that every piece of the routine that he’s figured out is going to be completely destroyed and uprooted, that Gabriel O’Malley is a fucking liar, that he’s going to miss—

“Said he apologized for coming in so early,” she says. “And he was wondering if he could take the kid back to your place, meet you there after work. I said I was going to call and talk to you, because this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“First I’ve heard of it too,” Flip says. Swallows. It’ll hurt less if he just lets it happen. It’ll hurt less if Gabriel just takes the baby out of his life the same way that he brought the baby in, suddenly and without warning, and maybe he’ll take all the packages he’s left off Flip’s table while he’s at it, maybe he’ll just—

“I can tell him to meet you back at your place tonight,” Carol offers.

“It’s alright,” Flip says. “He can—yeah, he can head back to my place with the kid if that’s what he wants to do.”

(He refuses to think of Gabriel as a father, knows for certain that he’s not, because Ron would have said—but it doesn’t make the impulse of the thought any less sudden, that fucking image of Gabriel’s head bent down against the baby’s, cheeks pressed together. How calm they’d looked together on Flip’s couch. How Gabriel never looked like he was awkward about it, just graceful and elegant, the baby curled up into his chest like he belonged there.)

“You’re sure?”

“He can,” Flip says, again. “If he wants, that’s fine.”

Silence.

Flip doesn’t glance up at Ron.

“Right,” Carol says. “Sure, I guess I owe him an apology—”

“You don’t,” Flip says. “He never calls in advance, he can damn well wait for you to get in touch with me.”

Carol laughs, then. “Alright, Mr. Zimmerman. I’ll send him up with the bag and everything, so you don’t need to worry about stopping here—you can just head straight home tonight.”

“Thank you,” Flip says. “I appreciate it—and thanks for checking.”

“Of course.”

Flip doesn’t hang up the phone right away—he waits, tries to see if he can hear anything in the background, and he almost thinks—but then there’s a click, and the line is dead, and he didn’t hear anything at all.

He looks up, and Ron is looking at him, saying absolutely nothing. It’s not what he wanted—he’d have preferred that Ron didn’t know Gabe was back in town again—but it’s better than someone else in the precinct picking up his phone. Ron, at least, will ask questions before he does anything.

“I wasn’t gone that long,” Flip says cautiously.

“Phone kept ringing,” Ron says, shrugging. “Either had to answer it or unplug it.”

“Well, next time unplug it,” Flip says. He waits until Ron laughs, goes back to his desk, and then reaches underneath his desk, plugs the yellow phone back in, just in case Gabe needs anything in the next couple hours before Flip actually heads home.

* * *

The day goes to shit pretty promptly after that. One of the rookies brings in a suspect for questioning, who promptly bolts. Flip chases him down, but not before he scales two chain link fences and nearly rolls his ankle tackling the guy coming off the last one.

He reeks of sweat when he gets back to the precinct, and he’s held up for another hour going through debriefing, and restraining himself from yelling at the rookie who had agreed that, yeah, cuffs probably wouldn’t be necessary for this, it was a friendly questioning session, all that bullshit. Then he stays even longer, because everybody wants to gossip about the case afterwards, and Flip doesn’t have a legitimate reason to go home—at least, not one that anybody knows about—and so he’s just stuck there, stewing about O’Malley, and trying to get it out of his head so that he’s not weird when he goes back to his place.

(He refuses to make this weird.)

* * *

It’s plenty weird all on its own.

Flip’s spare key is gone from under the rock out back of the apartment building, like he expected it would be. His door is unlocked, and he expected that too. There’s a gun sitting on the small table beside the door, which Flip unloads, puts back. When he walks into the kitchen to store the ammunition up above the fridge, he notices that the kitchen table is empty. That’s not how he left it.

The tv is on, but it’s tuned to static. That’s not how he left it either.

The door to the bedroom is partly open, and Flip nudges it, casting light from the hall slowly across the bed, half-expecting to see an empty room, a made bed, an apartment that has never had anyone in it besides Flip and the kid—

But no.

Gabriel is sitting in Flip’s bed, dead asleep, mouth half-open and neck at an angle that looks extremely uncomfortable. Flip’s comforter is thrown across his legs, and one of Flip’s spare blankets is wrapped around Gabriel’s shoulders. He can just barely see the baby’s head resting on Gabriel’s chest, body moving slightly with the rise and fall of Gabriel’s breathing.

Flip only means to stand there for a minute—they clearly need their sleep, the both of them, and Flip was intending on showering, which he could totally do without waking them—but then Gabriel shifts, and his eyelids flutter, open halfway.

Flip doesn’t know what to say. So he doesn’t say anything.

Gabriel looks down at the baby. Looks back at Flip. “You seem to have everything well in hand here.”

If Flip didn’t know better, he’d guess that O’Malley was hurt. Well, sucks to be him. “Yes.”

“I s’pose you’re going to tell me I should have called.”

“Didn’t expect you to,” Flip responds, and Gabriel winces.

“Christ, Zimmerman.”

“You said you wouldn’t be a problem anymore,” Flip points out.

“And am I?” Gabriel asks, sitting up straight and looking down at the baby. “A man pays for a child’s sitter—you’re paying too much for her, by the way—and cleans up a man’s house, and settles the kid down to sleep, and then gets told that he’s being a problem?” He shifts the baby a little, leans over and sets the kid down on the bed. Shifts the pillows so that they’ll prevent the kid from rolling off the edges. The kid doesn’t even roll yet.

Then Gabriel shrugs. The blanket comes off his shoulders, and Flip’s mouth dries up completely.

Gabriel isn’t wearing a shirt. His chest is completely bare, nipples visible in the dim light. He swings his legs off Flip’s bed, leans over and says something to the baby. His spine is visible under his skin as he bends over. His gold necklace catches the light for a moment. There’s no cross on the necklace now.

“You jumping in the shower?” Gabriel murmurs as he walks toward Flip. “You don’t smell so hot.”

Flip backs out of the room, backs up into the hallway until his sock feet hit the hallway carpet. “You smell fine,” he says, stupidly.

Gabriel laughs under his breath. “Got spit-up on me earlier,” he says. “Soaked through the shirt and undershirt both, they’re hanging on your towel rack.” He puts his hands behind his back, interlaces his fingers, and straightens his arms, shifting his head until something cracks. “Much better.” He reaches back, swings the door of the bedroom mostly shut behind him. “You hungry?”

“I have—”

“I’ll make us dinner,” Gabriel says, brushing his knuckles against Flip’s upper arm, and then moving past him into the kitchen. “Go shower.”

Flip retreats.

* * *

It takes him three times as long as usual to shower. He’s still got shampoo in his hair the first time he turns the water off, then he knocks Gabriel’s undershirt from the rack onto the floor, and then, finally, by the time he’s towelled off and out of the shower and standing on the mat, he can hear something sizzling in the kitchen, and suddenly just wonders if he could just—leave, somehow.

There’s no window in the bathroom, though, and he’ll wake the baby if he goes back into the bedroom.

He opens the bathroom door, nearly trips over the clothes that are set out on the floor. Set of jeans, a t-shirt he doesn’t remember the last time he’s worn, clean underwear, socks.

(He doesn’t think about Gabriel in his underwear drawer, long fingers picking through a mess of boxer shorts and loose socks.)

He closes the door to the bathroom again as he gets dressed. He feels oddly naked without a button-down over top, but it’s plenty warm in the bathroom, and it’ll be plenty warm in the apartment this time of day too, with the sun streaming in the windows.

The gun isn’t on the little table at the entrance when Flip comes out of the bathroom. He walks over to check, anyway, glances casually into the kitchen. There are plates set out on the table, and cutlery. Gabriel is standing at the stove shirtless, humming tunelessly, and poking at something with a wooden spoon.

(The gun isn’t tucked into the back of his pants, or his underwear, the band of which shows just slightly above the waist of his jeans, which are entirely too tight. He hadn’t realized Gabriel was so slender. He would have known that if he’d been able to get to him in the fire. There are a couple of scars on Gabriel’s back, old and faded, and some discolouration on his right side that looks like a burn mark. Flip should stop looking at him, keep looking for the gun—but the moment he lifts his eyes, he sees it on the counter, so he goes right back to studying the skin of Gabriel’s back.)

When Gabriel turns, Flip’s eyes are slow to flicker up his body to his face.

“It’s kosher,” Gabriel says.

“You didn’t have to—”

“I remember,” Gabriel says, voice still oddly flat. “From before. And also again the other week. It’s no problem.”

Flip swallows.

“There’s still a few minutes on this,” Gabriel says, putting down the wooden spoon and turning the burner down. “Here, you’ve got soap just—”

The kitchen is small. It only takes a couple steps for Gabriel to cross it, rub his thumb just under Flip’s jaw.

Flip can’t breathe.

“Much better,” Gabriel breathes. “You smell nicer, now.” His hand is lingering on Flip’s jaw.

Flip should step away. This is...different, from being slapped on the back or punched in the shoulder. This is...distinct. From those other things. Which are different. He’s been touched like this before, once or twice, but it’s never felt like anything except—fingers, on his skin, and pulling back from casual contact was the easiest thing in the world.

If he pulls back now, he feels like his soul is going to stick to Gabriel’s fingers, be tugged out of his body entirely. If he leans into it, he’ll just fall into Gabriel, be lost completely.

Gabriel leans in, a little closer, and Flip tenses. Stops moving completely. Gabriel’s face is so close—too close—he has nice lips and gold-red stubble on his cheeks and his eyes are sharp and—

“Alright,” Gabriel murmurs, pulls back a bit.

“Don’t go,” Flip blurts. “I just—I can’t—”

“...you can, you know,” Gabriel says, easily. “Who’s there to know? You know how us criminal types are, mouths shut tight. I’ve had the piss beaten out of me more times than I can count for things I refused to say.”

“I don’t…”

“There’s a world of difference between those two words,” Gabriel says, after Flip’s voice trails off into silence. “If you’re going to say _don’t_ , then I’m going to step away.”

Flip doesn’t say anything.

“If you’re going to say _can’t_ , though, Zimmerman...well,” Gabriel says, his mouth widening in a sharp smile. “I’m pretty sure you can.”

Flip just looks at him. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t shift away or toward.

Gabriel’s fingertips drag down the line of Flip’s jaw, and then his index finger presses firmly against Flip’s lips, for just a moment. “You’ll need to say something,” he murmurs softly. “Quiet, mind. But you realize the situation I’m in here. I’m a wanted man. You’re very aware of my past crimes, and I’m sure you could find out about my present ones with very little effort.” His finger lifts from Flip’s mouth, and Flip sways toward him.

Gabriel steadies him with fingertips on his chest, above but not touching his nipples, which Flip is suddenly more conscious of than he’s ever been in his life. “It’s in my best interests,” Gabriel continues softly, watching his own hands as they glide down Flip’s chest to the waistband of his jeans, “to make sure that you’re relaxed and happy.”

“I am,” Flip says, voice low. “Happy.”

“Hang onto that thought,” Gabriel says, flashing Flip a lightning-quick smile. “And give me a couple minutes here.” He kneels, right there on the kitchen floor, puts his hands on Flip’s hips. “I’m imaginin’ you’ve had this done before—you can shut your eyes, if you like, it’ll be real familiar for you—”

“It won’t be.” Flip’s voice cracks, but he swallows, keeps talking. “Familiar.”

“Oh,” Gabriel says, and now his voice has gone low as well, his face pinkening slightly as he looks up at Flip.

He’s got freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks. Flip’s never noticed them before. As he’s watching, Gabriel’s mouth parts, and the tip of his tongue drags along chapped lips before disappearing back inside his mouth. Without thinking too hard about what he’s doing, Flip brings up his hand, touches his thumb to the corner of Gabriel’s mouth. Gabriel turns his head into it, presses his lips against Flip’s thumb.

(Gabriel’s other hand is moving, tracing the waist of Flip’s jeans, settling on the button, his touch feather-light.)

Flip brushes his thumb along Gabriel’s lips, and Gabriel opens his mouth, sucks Flip’s thumb in. It’s warm inside. Wet. Soft. Gabriel’s canine is sharper than it maybe should be, and his breath is hot on Flip’s skin.

There’s a loosening of pressure, and Flip looks down to watch Gabriel ease the zipper down on his jeans. He pulls his thumb from Gabriel’s mouth, brings it up to his own. Hesitates.

He can feel Gabriel breathing on his boxers.

“I’m,” Flip manages. “It’s…”

“You can put your hands wherever you like,” Gabriel says. “Tap twice for stop if there’s no words.” He tips his head up, watches Flip through half-lidded eyes. “Yeah?”

Flip squeezes his eyes shut.

Opens them again.

Gabriel is still there.

“Yeah,” he says, and Gabriel splays his hands over Flip’s hips, pinches the fabric of his boxers, tugs them down sharply over Flip’s cock.

Flip inhales sharply, tips his head to the ceiling. The warm kitchen air seems suddenly cool across his exposed cock—and then it’s not at all anymore, because the head of it is engulfed by Gabriel’s mouth.

He’s not going to look down, because it’s like Gabriel said—he can close his eyes, he can put his hands where he wants, even if it’s behind his own head, he can—

—he looks down.

Gabriel’s eyes are closed, eyelashes hardly visible, and his mouth is on Flip’s cock. He looks—happy, in a way that Flip has never seen him before. Not snarky or sardonic or dead in the eyes, just—happy. His cheeks hollow slightly as he sucks—Flip gasps with it, the suction on the head of his cock, a sensation he’s never going to be able to replicate with his hand, because that’s not how jerking off works, this is an entirely new sensation—and then the pressure eases, and he feels the slight movement of Gabriel’s tongue against the underside of his cock, the drag of his lips against the flare of the head.

“Fuck,” Flip says, and Gabriel hums in response, the sensation shooting through every nerve in Flip’s body until he feels like a live wire, like something electrified, like—

—how do people go on with their day, when a fucking blowjob feels like _this_?

And then Gabriel curls his arm around Flip’s hips, plants his hand at the base of Flip’s spine, steadies him even though it feels like Flip’s legs are going to go out from under him. Tugs Flip toward him, even closer, and Flip watches in fascination as more of his cock disappears into Gabriel’s mouth.

(He can feel the top of Gabriel’s mouth, firm and rigid—and then Gabriel shifts, a little, and Flip’s cock nudges at the back of his throat, which is soft and welcoming.)

If Flip covers his face, he won’t be able to see any of this—and so he brings his hands, tentatively down to Gabriel’s body, settles one hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and the other on the back of Gabriel’s neck—and Gabriel makes that pleased humming sound again, actually pulls back on Flip’s cock to take a breath, and then moves in closer, like that was what Flip asked of him. Drags his tongue in a long line down the length of Flip’s cock, eyes closed and face flushed, and then brings his other hand over and strokes Flip’s hip. Nuzzles his nose against Flip’s pubic hair, and Flip knows his cock is big, but there’s something about seeing it pressed against the side of Gabriel’s face that brings the entire thing into a totally new perspective, and his hand twitches on Gabriel’s shoulder involuntarily.

Gabriel’s eyes flutter open, and he gazes up at Flip, eyes slightly unfocused. He sucks down the length of Flip’s cock again and then pulls back, covering the shaft of it with his hand, long fingers wrapping around it. When his mouth lets go with a wet _smack_ , there’s a string of saliva that briefly connects the head of Flip’s cock with Gabriel’s lips. “You can move,” Gabriel says, and his voice is _wrecked_. “Can’t hurt me.”

“If I move…”

“It’s fine,” Gabriel says. “You can come in my mouth.”

Flip’s hand twitches on Gabriel’s shoulder again, his other hand grounding itself in Gabriel’s hair, the short hairs at the back of his neck, and then gliding upward to the longer strands he can actually get a grip on.

“Yeah,” Gabriel says, voice cracking. “Christ, I gotta—can I keep going?”

(Flip swears his accent shifts, just for a moment.)

“Oh,” Flip says stupidly. “Yeah, you can—yeah.”

This time, Gabriel doesn’t pull any punches. He doesn’t go in slowly or softly, he just slides his hand down Flip’s spit-wet shaft and squeezes the base of his cock, opens his mouth and swallows Flip’s cock down. It’s everything, all at once—lips and a slight scrape of teeth and the back of his throat, and then Gabriel’s throat _flexes_ and he swallows.

Flip’s hips twitch forward and Gabriel _moans._

Flip does it again, pulls back and then nudges his hips again, thrusts his cock a little further into Gabriel’s mouth, and it feels so fucking good that Flip can’t possibly think about anything else that’s happened today, yesterday, or at any point in his life, because his entire world has contracted down to this, and only this—

—Gabriel O’Malley, torso bare but for the naked chain he wears around his neck, kneeling in Flip’s kitchen and sucking his cock like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted to do in his life. Flip’s hand is in Gabriel’s hair, strands wound around his fingers. Gabriel’s hand is on the small of Flip’s back, his other hand on Flip’s ballsack, fingers dancing lightly, and Flip just—holds him there, moves his hips in erratic little jerks, watching the way Gabriel’s eyelashes flutter and his hair moves. Gabriel is breathing through his nose, and his mouth is spit-slick on Flip’s cock. Flip wants to hold Gabriel’s head still, press in as far as he can, but Gabriel won’t be able to breathe that way, so he pulls out near completely, watches Gabriel’s lips as he pulls his cock back out—and then Gabriel gasps in a quick breath, goes right back down onto Flip’s cock, and there’s a moment where the head of Flip’s cock presses against the inside of Gabriel’s cheek and Flip can clearly see the outline of it—and then Gabriel shifts his head, swallows hard, and Flip is coming before he even realizes he’s that close, no ability to do anything but curse out a whispered apology, hanging his head and balancing his weight on Gabriel’s shoulders as he comes down Gabriel’s throat.

It’s the strongest orgasm he remembers having.

(He doesn’t think he’ll be able to come again without thinking of exactly this.)

“Fuck,” he breathes. He’s folded so far over his lips are nearly touching Gabriel’s hair, and he’s leaning in like he’s going to press his lips there, but the thought of it paralyzes him, and he freezes a moment before straightening back up.

Gabriel sits back on his heels, Flip’s softening dick releasing from his mouth with a wet sound. He looks flushed, and pleased. It’s a good look on him.

“That was lovely,” Gabriel says, licking his lips, and then bringing up his thumb to the corner of his mouth, wiping at it and grinning up at Flip. “You look much more relaxed now.”

Flip busies himself with pulling up his boxers, tucking his cock away, face burning at the thought of Gabriel looking now that it’s all—said and done. Now that it’s over with. “You look...happy.”

“Accurate,” Gabriel purrs, and just like that, he’s standing up again, too quickly for Flip to have the opportunity to give him a hand up. He reaches his hands up over his head, stretches, and Flip can see the hard jut of his cock, pressing up against his pants in a line.

Flip swallows. He’s never—seen that before, not on another man, hasn’t been in a place where it’s been safe to look—

“Beer’s in the fridge,” Gabriel says easily. “And I’ll fill a couple plates when I get back.”

“Where,” Flips starts—but he knows.

He knows when Gabriel smirks at him, turns on his heel and heads to the hallway.

He knows when he can hear the water turning on in the bathroom.

He knows when the water keeps running.

He knows when the toilet doesn’t flush.

He knows when Gabriel comes back, face pink, eyes hazy and half-lidded.

Flip knows, and he wishes he’d been courageous enough to do something about it.

* * *

They get about halfway through their meal when the first whimper comes from the bedroom. Flip bolts up, because he needs some kind of a distraction from the way the setting sun keeps catching in Gabriel’s hair. Cradles the baby to his chest and goes back out to the living room to find that Gabriel is already warming up a bottle for the kid, and it—catches in Flip’s throat, sticks there like it’s something he’ll choke on even though he’d rather just cough it out.

He expects Gabriel to pass him the bottle, but instead Gabriel reaches for the baby, and Flip hands him over, hands brushing against Gabriel’s momentarily. Gabriel isn’t even looking at him—he’s just watching the baby with that soft look in his eyes, holding the bottle up to his mouth and making steady eye contact.

 _(Let me take this from you_ only he never imagined that Gabriel wanted it, never imagined that Gabriel would come back, never imagined he’d be able to see him again, much less—

_Christ, I gotta—can I keep going?)_

“He been sleeping okay?” Gabriel asks, and he’s looking right at Flip.

“Better than me,” Flip says without thinking about it.

Gabriel cocks his head.

Flip looks away. “The baby’s been—”

“Stensland,” Gabriel says, insistently. “His name is Stensland.”

_Shooting at Stensland Avenue, three dead including the perpetrator—_

“Stensland,” Flip says, softly.

* * *

Flip falls asleep on the couch, wakes to Stensland making discontented noises because he’s worked his arms out of his swaddle. He’s been changed into a set of pink footie pyjamas that Flip knows for certain he didn’t purchase, and he’s wrapped in a worn pink blanket.

There’s a note on the kitchen table.

_It was nice to see you._

_Sorry to leave._

The gun is gone, but the ammunition is still on top of the fridge.

Flip goes out to the street anyway, Stensland cradled against his shoulder, and Flip’s bare feet chilled by the morning crispness of the pavement.

Gabriel’s car is already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Notes:** brief implication that Flip has driven drunk/attempted to drive drunk in the past | more PTSD flashbacks | 
> 
> And, there we have it! Thank you, again, to Deadsy for doing the edits on this.
> 
> There's a blog post, [up on my blog](https://heyktula.wordpress.com/2020/01/31/an-avenue-by-any-other-name-chapter-three/). I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula) right now.
> 
> See everyone next week for the next chapter!


	4. Backfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's forest fire season in Colorado Springs, and Flip can't sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, the content notes are at the end.

Flip wakes with the scent of smoke in his nose, throat tight. His hand goes immediately to the bed beside him, but nobody’s there, and his eyes snap open to the orange burn of approaching flames—

—no, it’s dim sunlight, filtering through his window. Stensland is sound asleep on the other side of the bed, one little fist up above his head, and the other tucked up under his chin. It’s five am, and the dawn is just breaking over the mountains, the morning sun orange-red, the skies a consistent haze of smoke.

It’s forest fire season, and the wind has shifted overnight, pushing the smoke from the forest into the townsite.

That’s all.

It’s not like before.

Flip drags his ass out of bed, goes to the bathroom. Pisses, pours himself a glass of tepid water and swallows it back, rubs the sleep out of his eyes. It’s too late to go back to sleep, and too early for a beer, and he’s got work besides—surveillance, today, which is going to be a fuck of a lot of driving around in circles, and not much else.

Carol remarks on it when he drops Stensland off that morning— _late night, huh?—_ and Flip murmurs a vague response, tries not to think about fires or smoke or the three year old certainty that Gabriel O’Malley had died, and Flip had just _let_ him, but it’s hard when the sun is red and the air hurts to breathe, and there isn’t shit-all happening at work to distract him, just endless miles of side-streets and nothing particularly interesting about any of them. He’s working with somebody else today, one of the newer officers instead of Ron, and so the twitch of his fingers on the wheel goes completely unnoticed when he turns the corner, catches sight of a battered Oldsmobile convertible just turning ahead of him, and he hopes, he hopes—

But he’s the one who picks up Stensland from Carol’s that night, and he doesn’t see hide or hair of Gabriel for the rest of the week, and after a while, he wonders if he just mistook the make of the car completely, if he was just thinking about it because of the fires.

Maybe he was just hoping for something that wasn’t there.

* * *

The smoke gets thicker throughout the week, and Flip’s temper gets shorter. He worries about Stensland, about his little lungs and how small the kid is in the first place, but Stensland continues to be his normal self, and it’s just Flip who erodes as the week goes on until he’s not sleeping at all, just sitting up in bed all night watching Stensland breathe next to him.

When he gets in the car that morning to drive to work after dropping off Stensland, he fumbles getting the keys into the ignition, drops them on the floor by his foot, and then—leans forward, rests his head against the steering wheel for a minute. He’s spent all week just telling himself it’s a forest fire, that it’s not the same as when the sawmill burnt down, that Stensland’s lungs are fine even though he’s a quiet baby, prone to babbling to himself rather than wailing, and it’s not enough.

Flip hauls himself out of the car, picks his keys up off the floorboard, and then trudges back into his apartment. Calls into the station to tell them he won’t be in, and then crawls into bed fully dressed and falls asleep.

* * *

He wakes to the distant sound of rain. Rubs his eyes and just listens for a moment. It sounds like it’s raining hard outside, and steady. The kind of rain that’ll last well into the weekend, and that’s exactly what they need.

That’s not the only sound of water, though.

He can also hear the shower running.

It could be the next apartment over, but he knows it’s not, confirms it when he gets out of bed and glances down the hall, sees Gabriel’s gun sitting on the table by the entrance. Still brings his fingers to the buttons of his own shirt, starts undoing them as he goes to the bathroom. The door’s cracked open, and he presses his fingers against it gently, lets it swing open.

Gabriel’s in there, showering. The glass door is slid shut, but Gabriel is tall enough that the occasional glimpse of red hair is still visible above the door. Flip watches the flashes of his fingers as he scrubs his hair, the odd tuneless humming that drifts over, flashes of things that might be melodies, but none that Flip recognizes.

Then Flip’s gaze wanders over to the sink, and he stills. Any soap bubbles have long since evaporated, and his sink is full of brown-red water, and a mass of cloth.

Flip steps inside the bathroom, pinches the first bit of fabric he sees, and pulls it out of the water.

The shower stops, and the door slides open.

“Blood’s not on my underwear,” Gabriel says easily. “Don’t mind if you touch them though.”

Flip’s eyes shift at the sound of Gabriel’s voice, and then stay there.

Gabriel is bare-ass naked but for his necklace, standing there with his arms by his sides and his soaking wet hair slicked back from his face. Flip checks him over without meaning to, looking for the places he’s injured. Nothing on his face, nothing on his chest except his small nipples and the glint of the chain on his sternum. His arms look fine too, and so does his stomach, save for the white of old scars wrapping around from his back, and a slight dusting of red-gold hair leading down to his—leading down to his soft cock, right there between his legs, head of it completely obscured by his foreskin. Flip’s seen other men naked before—lots of them, he works in a damn police precinct, he’s seen all manner of naked men—but this is different, and he has to consciously force himself to finish checking, to look down the length of Gabriel’s thighs to his knees and then his calves, the tops of his feet.

“Turn around,” Flip says, and he hardly recognizes his own voice.

Gabriel smirks, puts his hands behind his head, and turns around. Flip can see the red tuft of his armpit hair too, traces the length of his spine down his back, mapping the scars he still remembers from the last time he saw Gabriel shirtless, but getting hung up on what he didn’t see last time—the curve of Gabriel’s ass, the cleft between his buttocks, and the regular procedure for this kind of thing that’s running through Flip’s head even though he doesn’t want it to, _bend forward, put your hands on the wall, legs apart,_ the snap of gloves, only it’s not—

“Want me to spread ‘em?” Gabriel drawls.

“Fuck,” Flip says sharply, removed from the fantasy just as quickly as if someone had dumped cold water on his head. “Get some fucking clothes on,” he grumbles, and he turns around and leaves the bathroom, doesn’t realize until he gets into the kitchen that he’s still holding Gabriel’s dripping wet underwear between his fingers. Tosses the underwear into the kitchen sink, where they land with a wet splat, grabs a cigarette from his pack on the table, flicks his lighter and tries to get it lit without thinking about fire and—

“So they just don’t make ‘em gay out here, do they?” Gabriel says from behind him.

Flip stiffens, shoulders going up to his ears. Doesn’t turn around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Think you do,” Gabriel says. “You can turn around if you like, I’ve got a towel on.”

Flip does.

Gabriel’s got more than one towel on—a dark one around his waist, a lighter one tossed over his shoulders, covering most of his chest. “I’m not mad,” he says.

“Didn’t say you were.”

“Thought things had gone alright last time,” Gabriel continues.

Flip nods. “Mm-hmm.”

Gabriel cocks his head, considers a moment. “You sure things went alright last time?”

“Yeah.”

“But not this time.”

Flip takes a drag on his cigarette, tries to find words for it. “I’m a cop,” he says, finally.

“And I’m a criminal,” Gabriel says. “Nothin’ about that’s changed in the last three, four years.” He chuckles, darkly. “Not the first time I been strip-searched neither.”

Flip flinches. “That’s a perversion of justice,” he mutters, looking down at the floor. “If I’d gone through with it. Misuse of…”

“...those nice big fingers of yours?” Gabriel asks.

(It hadn’t been fingers he’d wanted to put in Gabriel, had it. But Gabriel doesn’t know that. And Gabriel doesn’t need to find out.)

“Yeah,” Flip says. “Sure.”

“So roleplay is out,” Gabriel says. “If you’re not comfortable with it.” He flashes Flip a cautious smile that only involves half of his mouth, the rest of his face remaining flat. “Doesn’t mean everything has to be off the table, if you don’t want it to be. If Stensland’s crashed out this hard, we’ve probably got—”

“He’s not here,” Flip says softly.

Gabriel’s face hardens.

“Downstairs,” Flip says, feeling like he’s exposing more of himself than what he’d like by saying it. “With Carol.”

“But you’re here,” Gabriel says suspiciously. “Why isn’t he here?”

“I was supposed to be at work.”

Gabriel waits, face still tight.

“...the smoke,” Flip says, finally. “It’s been a week and a half of smoke, and I’m—” _Raw around the edges_ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to explain that to a man like Gabriel, who should be nothing but edges and rawness, but who holds Stensland unselfconsciously, who smiles at Flip on rare occasions before he turns his face away, a man like Gabriel who didn’t die in the fire that should have killed him even when Flip hadn’t been able to protect him, and the entire sawmill burnt to the ground, and Flip’s hair smelled like smoke for a solid week no matter how much he washed it, and he’d thrown out all his clothes. “It reminds me of the fire,” he says, finally.

Gabriel’s face doesn’t change. “What fire?”

“Don’t be a dumbass,” Flip says. The ash falls off the end of his cigarette to the linoleum beneath him, and he scuffs it over with his foot. “You know what fire.”

Gabriel shakes his head. “Not up on my Colorado history. Hardly ever here.”

“The sawmill.”

O’Malley shrugs.

“I thought you _died_.”

Gabriel’s eyes widen. “Wait, three years ago?”

Flip looks away.

“I was drunk off my ass that night,” Gabriel says, finally. “I, uh. Fuck, that must have been…I’d been…” He clears his throat. “Building went up fast. I took off before the cops showed up. Came back later that week.” He leans back against the counter, towel slipping slightly on his shoulders. “You looked a fuck of a lot nicer in your uniform and shoulder holster than you ever looked in that undercover shit you were wearing, I can tell you that.”

Flip scowls at him.

Gabriel shrugs, readjusts the towel.

“I just about killed myself running into the building to find you,” Flip says, finally. “Partner dragged me out. They put me on oxygen. Coughed my lungs out for a week after.”

He expects a sardonic remark—deserves it, really—but what he doesn’t expect is Gabriel’s eyes widening, and his face softening.

“For me?” Gabriel asks. “Christ. I’m not worth that, Zimmerman.”

Flip shrugs.

“I could blow you every day for the rest of your life and still not make it worth your time to rescue me,” Gabriel says. “Jesus fuck, I’d have never asked that of you. Coulda just let my drunk ass burn.” He runs his hand back through his hair, the towel on his shoulders falling unattended onto the counter behind him. “Christ. What the fuck, Flip. I was a fuckin’ mess that year, drunk off my ass most of the time. There was—in New York—you knew that, you humoured me trying to fence you shit that didn’t exist, things I didn’t actually own, I tried to sell you a goddamn _bridge_ —you saw me that year, you _knew_ me.”

Flip’s cigarette is out. He frowns at it, sets it down in the ashtray on his kitchen table, even though there’s still plenty left to smoke. “Well,” he says, “you that year, me the next year, guess we got that in common too.”

Gabriel looks over at him, forehead furrowed in concern.

“Didn’t find out you were alive till the year after,” Flip says, finally. “Like I said. Thought you were dead.”

“Shit,” Gabriel breathes.

“I’m fine now, but the smoke…”

Gabriel runs his hand back through his hair again. “Well, Christ. I’d have come down earlier if I’d known.”

“What was I gonna do,” Flip asks, “write you a fucking letter?”

“Coulda called.”

Flip stares at him.

“...didn’t I leave you my number?”

“You did not,” Flip says evenly.

“Shit,” Gabriel says. He turns, starts pulling open drawers and digging around in them, tossing scrap paper onto the counter, and continuing to dig.

There’s a pen beside the phone in the living room, but Flip doesn’t open his mouth to direct Gabriel there. The towel is slipping a bit on Gabriel’s hips, and the curve of his ass is just barely visible again. It’s dried the inside of Flip’s mouth out completely. He wonders what it would feel like to wrap his hand around the curve of Gabriel’s waist. How soft his skin would be. What Gabriel would do if Flip tugged at the towel until it fell, looked at him again. Whether he’d be able to see Gabriel’s cock rise just by looking at him, or whether there’s more to it than that.

(Gabriel’d been hard after blowing Flip, though. Hadn’t even had his own hand in his pants, had been hard just from his mouth on Flip’s cock. Flip’s spent so much time wondering what Gabriel’s clothed cock would have felt like under his hand, but can’t imagine a world in which Gabriel actually lets him—or Flip actually asks.)

“Didn’t figure it’d be this difficult to find a fucking pen,” Gabriel says, scrawling something onto the piece of paper on the counter. “But here. New York number, Chicago number, don’t call me in Omaha unless it’s an emergency, Kansas City, though I’m hardly ever there, and Salt Lake City.”

“And in Denver?”

“The fuck would I be in Denver,” Gabriel asks, turning and tugging the towel back up, gripping the place where the tail of it is tucked in with one hand and gesturing with the other, “when I could be here an hour later? Fuck’s there to keep me in Denver?”

“Fuck’s there to keep you here?”

Gabriel makes an exasperated noise, pushes himself up till he’s sitting on Flip’s counter, bare feet swinging. “You’re an asshole, Zimmerman.”

Flip wonders what it would be like to crowd in against Gabriel, catch Gabriel’s bare foot in his hand. Wonders if Gabriel would stay there if Flip asked him, wonders what else he could ask Gabriel to do, if everything else isn’t off the table. “I probably can’t read your handwriting,” Flip says instead, and he closes the space between them, leans in close to Gabriel so he can snatch up the scrap of paper and study it.

Gabriel’s cursive is heavy and deliberate, the pen pressed so firmly to the paper that it’ll be visible on the page underneath even if he tears this page off when he leaves again, exactly like Flip knows he’s going to—

“Do people tell you how big you are on a regular basis, or has everyone just ceased to notice?”

Flip looks over, and Gabriel’s face is literally right there, his head leaned back against Flip’s cupboards, his face clean-shaven, and his eyelashes hardly visible even though their faces are very, very close. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” Gabriel says, his voice clinical and steady, like he’s talking about the weather, or a point of interest story he’d recently read in the news. “It’s three-quarters of what I think about when we’re in the same room.”

“What’s the other quarter?” Flip asks.

Gabriel chuckles, offers another fraction of a smile. “Nope, that’s not how this happens. You don’t dig around asking me questions unless you’re sure you’re comfortable with the answers.”

This close, Gabriel smells of Flip’s soap, except Flip’s pretty sure the soap has never smelled that good on his own body.

“I could pretend,” Flip says. “I’m good at—”

“ _Get some fucking clothes on_ ,” Gabriel says in a poor imitation of Flip’s voice, and then he pushes himself off the counter, lands lightly on the floor. “Which I never actually did, so—”

Flip’s hand is around Gabriel’s upper arm.

They’re both looking at it.

The apology is right on Flip’s tongue when Gabriel speaks, and his voice is rougher than it was a moment ago.

“You have an extremely large hand,” he says.

Flip leans in and kisses him, right on the lips. They aren’t nearly as chapped as they were last time, and they open immediately to Flip’s mouth. The kiss is warm and soft and Flip can feel Gabriel’s breath catch just as much as he can hear it.

(If Flip’s cock wasn’t hard before, it definitely is now.)

Flip’s long past being out of breath when he finally pulls back, has to gulp in air because his head is spinning.

“So,” Gabriel says roughly. “It’s like that, is it.”

Flip moves in closer, crowds him back against the counter, hands hovering over Gabriel’s waist, where the towel is tucked, over the soft curve of his hips, just—breathes on him, studies the angles of his face, the colour of his eyes, constantly shifting in the light.

“Lift me up,” Gabriel says softly.

His skin is warm under Flip’s palms, hipbone hard and pointed. Flip picks Gabriel up and deposits him back on the counter where he’d been, moves in close until he’s right between Gabriel’s legs.

His lips taste just as good the second time, like toothpaste and warm breath and—

“Christ,” Gabriel laughs into his mouth, “you smoke menthol?”

“Tail end of the pack,” Flip murmurs. “Sorry, I—”

“‘s fine,” Gabriel says, and he squeezes his knees around Flip’s hips. “Just surprised me, is all.”

“Sorry,” Flip says again, but he hardly lifts his lips from Gabriel’s when he says it, because Gabriel’s mouth is utterly fascinating, the way it moves underneath his, the way Gabriel’s sharp teeth are right there, and on instinct, Flip runs his tongue along Gabriel’s lower lip, and Gabriel shudders, puts his hands on Flip’s arms.

“That okay?” Gabriel asks.

“Yeah.”

“C’mere, then,” Gabriel says, and he knocks his bare heel against the back of Flip’s thigh. “Closer.”

“Counter’s in the way as it is,” Flip breathes into the side of Gabriel’s face before dragging his lips down Gabriel’s cheek, kisses his neck, right underneath his ear.

Gabriel’s hands tighten on Flip’s arms. “Take me to the sofa, then.”

Flip nods, picks Gabriel up. Gabriel’s legs tighten around Flip’s waist, his arms around Flip’s neck as he nuzzles into Flip’s neck, hums something tuneless.

(Flip wishes his cock was anywhere but down the leg of his pants right now, because he’d let Gabriel slip down his body, just a little, just to feel that pressure there.)

It’s not that far to the couch, and Gabriel fidgets a little like he’s going to unwrap his legs, stand up—but Flip just squeezes him tighter to keep him close. “Gonna lower you down now,” he says, voice soft.

“Alright,” Gabriel responds. He shifts one of his hands between them, clenching the towel tight around his waist.

Flip puts his right knee on the couch, slowly lowers Gabriel down to the cushions. Lets his hand tangle in Gabriel’s hair, trails his other hand across the towel covering Gabriel’s ass, and then up to his bare thigh. He can hardly see the hair there, it’s so blond, but he can feel it underneath his fingers, and he’s absolutely enchanted by it.

“Christ,” Gabriel complains, wriggling on the couch. “I’m ticklish, get out of there. And get your damn shirt off, you’ve been distracting me since you came into the damn bathroom with the stupid thing half undone, Flip, for fuck’s sake.”

“Alright, alright,” Flip says. He straightens up, makes quick work of unbuttoning his shirt, and then reaches behind himself and yanks his undershirt over his head for good measure too.

“Fucking hell,” Gabriel says. “Hardly know where to look.”

“It’s just my chest,” Flip says, a little self-consciously.

“Sure,” Gabriel says, “and your abs, and your cock in those fucking jeans, and how goddamn _tall_ you are, Zimmerman, for Christ’s sake.”

“Just as tall as you are.”

“Nobody’s taller than me,” Gabriel says, “‘cept for you, unfortunately, and it does all kinds of things to me.”

“Yeah?”

“You gonna undo your pants for me, or do you want me to do it again? That can’t be comfortable.”

“I won’t die of it,” Flip says.

“I might,” Gabriel says. “Here—sit on my thighs, right there.”

“Need a wider couch,” Flip mutters.

“We’ll manage,” Gabriel says, reaching forward and making quick work of Flip’s jeans before propping himself up on an elbow and just staring.

“Something wrong?”

“Thought I misremembered,” Gabriel says. “Definitely didn’t.” He reaches out, presses his palm against Flip’s cock, and Flip groans, hips twitching forward against him. “Yeah, like that.”

“Wanna kiss you again,” Flip says.

“So come kiss me, then.”

Flip leans down, wraps his hand around the back of Gabriel’s head, kisses him long and deep. It’s easier, now, when he doesn’t have to worry about whacking Gabriel’s head back against the cupboards, when Gabriel’s head is protected by cushions. Gabriel’s hand is still moving overtop of Flip’s cock, and he rocks forward into him again, groaning against Gabriel’s mouth.

“Christ,” Gabriel gasps. “Bet you’ve got yourself off on this couch before, huh? Bet you just sit here, jeans open, cock in your hand, wishin’ I was there to kneel between your legs, suck you off exactly the way you like it.”

“Fuck, you’ve got a foul mouth,” Flip says, kissing Gabriel’s neck hard, and then breathing heavy into his shoulder, his ability to do more than one thing at once rapidly declining the closer he gets to orgasm, and the more Gabriel’s fingers dance along the length of his cock. It’s intoxicating. Gabriel touches his cock like he’s confident in his skills, and he has every right to be, because being touched like this by Gabriel is a high-speed chase, adrenaline pumping in his veins heart pounding in his ears. “Fuck, Gabriel, they’re clean shorts, would you—”

“Right,” Gabriel says vaguely, his face warm against Flip’s as he gives Flip’s cock one last pull through the fabric, and then takes his hand away.

Flip groans, settles his chest against Gabriel’s for a second to catch his breath.

Gabriel turns his head, nibbles at Flip’s ear. “Hand or mouth?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“You want my hand or my mouth?” Gabriel asks.

“Don’t wanna move,” Flip mutters. “You smell amazing.”

“Hand, then,” Gabriel says, breathless. He shifts slightly under Flip, then shoves his hand between them, works Flip’s boxers partway down his thighs.

Flip’s cock smacks upward into his stomach, the sound audible in the room, and Gabriel’s breath catches, his face colouring.

“Shit,” he curses, groping between them until his fingers are finally, finally right on Flip’s bare cock. “Goddamn, wish I’d seen that, gorgeous cock you’ve got—”

“Don’t,” Flip murmurs into his neck. “You don’t need to flatter me.”

“Oh god,” Gabriel says, shifting underneath Flip again, and then hooking his leg around Flip’s legs, tugging him in closer. “You think I’m lying.”

“The thing with the bridge,” Flip breathes.

“So?” Gabriel says in return, giving Flip’s cock a sharp twist before wincing. “Christ, sorry.”

“Wha—no, don’t stop, Gabriel, I’m close—” Flip twitches his hips, trying to get back into Gabriel’s tight grip, but Gabriel has pulled his hand out from between them.

“Head up,” Gabriel says.

Flip lifts his head from where he’d had it buried in Gabriel’s neck, watches as Gabriel brings his hand up to his mouth, then lifts his head and spits in the palm of his hand.

Flip’s eyes widen, his heart pounding in his throat, and goosebumps breaking out all over his body, his cock pulsing sharply.

Gabriel raises his eyebrows, tilts his palm toward Flip’s mouth. There’s a pool of spit cradled in his palm.

Flip shakes his head. His mouth is so dry, he wouldn’t have a hope, and he’s far too busy trying to stop himself from coming all over himself to be able to concentrate on—

“Suit yourself,” Gabriel says, and then he puts his wet hand back between them again, grabs Flip’s cock firmly, starts stroking it hard—and that’s it.

Flip’s whole body twitches, the orgasm hitting him fast and hard as his hips thrust forward into Gabriel’s hand, every part of his body going tense down to the sharp flexion of his feet, and all the while Gabriel strokes him firmly through it, the slick sounds of his spit combining with Flip’s come, and his hand moving faster and faster until Flip’s breath catches and all the tension goes out of his body at once.

He looks down, and is suddenly frozen, only realizing at this exact moment that he’s come all over Gabriel’s stomach.

No, not just his stomach—over his stomach, and up to his chest, and there’s even a couple spatters of it on Gabriel’s neck, and Flip feels—awkward and ashamed and possessive about it all at once, like he’s marked Gabriel in some way, indelibly. Like Gabriel won’t be able to get it off him, now, and maybe like Flip doesn’t want him to, like Flip maybe just wants to keep Gabriel here, on his couch, wants to take Gabriel into his bed, wants to—

Gabriel exhales hard, props himself on his elbow. Looks at his hand, which is slick with spit and come. “Hold whatever thought you’re having,” he rasps out, and then brushes his lips against the side of Flip’s face, and squirms out from under Flip, disappears down the hall.

Flip sighs, flops over onto the couch on his back. The fabric is warm underneath his bare back from Gabriel’s body heat. He can hear Gabriel’s footsteps, the creak of the hinges as the door closes, and then the creak of the door itself as Gabriel leans back against it. There’s a soft thump, silence—and then a string of half-muffled profanities before silence again.

Flip’s face and chest are both hot. His dick is oozing onto his own stomach, and he’s absolutely aching for Gabriel’s company again. He swipes at the smear of come with his hand, scrubs it on his boxer shorts, and tugs them back up, tucking his dick away. His jeans are halfway down his legs, and he sits up, shoves them the rest of the way off, lets them crumple on the floor as he spreads his legs, tries to cool off. He’s suddenly glad that his shirt is off, because the entire room is too goddamn warm right now, the whole apartment might be too warm, but he’s sure as fuck not going to the bathroom to shower when Gabriel’s still here.

(It’s not that he doesn’t trust Gabriel—but that he doesn’t trust himself around Gabriel, because even now, moments after an orgasm that destroyed him just as intensely as the first one with Gabriel had, part of his brain is still playing that loop of Gabriel, dripping wet and stark naked, standing in his shower, and Flip just wishes he hadn’t been such a goddamn _coward_ and had—)

Flip yawns. Stretches.

Lets his eyes close for just a moment.

* * *

The scent of cigarette smoke hits him, sharp and sudden. Flip keeps his eyes closed, orients himself back to his apartment, to his couch…to the soft noises of Gabriel moving around in Flip’s apartment. Flip brushes his hair back behind his ear, turns his head slightly and opens his eyes. Gabriel moves like a fucking ghost, silent but for the sounds of the objects he picks up and puts down—something heavy in the vicinity of the table that’s probably his gun, the suck and give of the fridge opening, a clink of glass. Flip forces himself to wait, to be patient, even though he wants to turn—but he concentrates on slowing his breathing, listening to Gabriel moving around in his apartment. Wonders if he’s bothered to get dressed, or if he’s just bare-ass naked, if he’ll come around like that, flushed down his chest, sit down next to Flip exactly like that, let Flip put his hand right on Gabriel’s naked knee…

“Beer?” Gabriel asks.

He’s dressed—a loose pair of grey shorts with a white tshirt, and Flip is oddly disappointed by all the skin he _doesn’t_ see. Gabriel’s face is pink, and there are droplets of water on his skin. His hair is slicked back, the long bits tucked behind his ears, like he’d splashed his face in the sink afterwards, after he’d…

“Thanks,” Flip says, reaching for the beer, fingertips brushing against Gabriel’s. “Sorry—fell asleep.”

“Must have needed it,” Gabriel says, and then he sits down, right on Flip’s lap, straddling him.

Flip’s disappointment evaporates immediately, replaced by anticipation and arousal and a sudden sense of self-consciousness at exactly how _big_ he is, how much space he takes up, and whether he’d gotten himself appropriately tucked away afterwards, and whether—

“You look better now,” Gabriel observes, smoke curling up around his face from the cigarette dangling from his lips.

“I feel better,” Flip says, distracted by the weight of Gabriel’s body on his thighs, by the sheer willpower it’s taking him to keep his left hand on the arm of the couch, his right on the cushion. “Told you—didn’t sleep for fucking shit this week cuz of the fucking—”

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Gabriel says, leaning away from Flip and exhaling the smoke from his mouth in a rush. “I fuckin’ forgot.”

“...it’s just cigarette smoke,” Flip says, finally, once he regains the ability to speak. “I can tell the difference between the two, even in my sleep.”

“Well, I didn’t fucking know that,” Gabriel gripes, dragging his hand back through his hair and only serving to mess it up even more. “Christ.”

“Hey,” Flip says, setting down his beer, and then reaching out to put his hand on Gabriel’s thigh. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” And then, as though it’ll distract from where his hand is, like neither he or Gabriel have noticed what he’s done, Flip lifts his other hand and plucks the cigarette from Gabriel’s lip, inhales from it himself. “See?”

Gabriel’s leg tenses under Flip’s hand, Gabriel’s body swaying back toward him, and Flip rubs his thumb on the tight muscle without thinking, his hand on the fabric, his thumb just barely brushing bare skin. There’s a scar on Gabriel’s thigh, just above the knee—white, but uneven.

“What’s this from?”

“...baseball bat,” Gabriel says, retrieving his cigarette. He pinches the tip of it, face absolutely flat, and then sets the unlit cigarette down on the coffee table behind him.

“Ah,” Flip says. He runs his thumb over the scar again, keeps watching that because he’s feeling unsettled about looking Gabriel in the face when Gabriel is this close to him, when Gabriel is perched right on his lap. In this position, Gabriel’s legs spread to accommodate the width of Flip’s thighs, keeping his eyes fixed on the scar above Gabriel’s knee lets Flip flicker his eyes up a little further, too, to the crotch of Gabriel’s shorts, where they’re pulled tight between his legs. _Spread ‘em_ , and Flip won’t be able to ask what he’s gonna ask if he has to look at Gabriel’s face, so he shifts his eyes downward again, focuses on that white jagged scar. “You get strip-searched often?”

Gabriel makes an odd sound, and Flip looks up at him. His eyebrow is raised, and the bastard is—suppressing a goddamn laugh, even though Flip’s question wasn’t funny at all. There’s a moment where Flip is tempted to go right for the ticklish spot under Gabriel’s knee, use the distraction to turn Gabriel over, pin him down on the couch to ask him the question again, to ask him properly.

“I’m serious,” Flip says, aware of how his voice rumbles low in his chest, how his hand has stilled on Gabriel’s knee—and seeing by the look on Gabriel’s face that he’s aware of it too.

“Some,” Gabriel says, finally.

“They bad?” Flip asks. “The searches.”

Gabriel shrugs.

“Cuz if we’re talking about trauma,” Flip says. “I’ve seen...some of them were...not good. And so I wanted to know if you had...associations.”

“You’re checking to see if I’m gonna freak out over the old hands on the wall, feet spread, gloved fingers up the ass trick?” Gabriel says.

“Yes.”

“No.” Gabriel shifts on Flip’s lap, and then deliberately moves his hands, resting his wrists on the back of the couch, one on either side of Flip’s head. He leans in close, and flashes Flip a bright grin. “It’s been so long I’m pretty sure that territory is re-virginized.”

“That’s not a thing,” Flip says. He’s getting caught, again, by the way the light glints off Gabriel’s hair, by the smoothness of his cheeks and the sharp angles of his cheekbones, sucked into Gabriel’s presence like a car into a sinkhole.

“I’m Catholic,” Gabriel says, “and I’m pretty sure it is.”

“I don’t think that’s intended for fingers up the ass,” Flip retorts.

“You dead sure about that?” Gabriel drawls. He wraps his hand around the back of Flip’s neck, plays with the clasp on Flip’s necklace.

Flip opens his mouth to respond—but it’s gone dry, and he has no idea what he’s going to say. He’s back to thinking about Gabriel, soaking wet from the shower, standing there with all his clothes in the sink and Flip between him and the door, the way Gabriel had put his hands on his head, the way he’d turned around, how if Gabriel doesn’t have bad experiences of this, bad memories, maybe Flip could have—

“You’re the cop, and all,” Gabriel continues. “Maybe this is your area of expertise or somethin’, how should I know.”

“It’s not.”

“But it could be,” Gabriel answers. “Maybe you got me in your apartment here. Maybe I’m trapped.” His eyes skirt down Flip’s bare chest before slowly idling back up to Flip’s face. “Maybe there’s something I can do for you to get me out of this...situation I’m in.”

Flip looks up at him stupidly. “You offering to blow me?”

“Yes,” Gabriel says immediately. “That’s exactly what I’m offering.” He interlaces his fingers behind Flip’s neck, cracks his knuckles. “How about it, Zimmerman?”

Flip’s brain is still trying to catch up with everything—but his cock has already made a decision, and it’s starting to thicken in his boxers. “Sure,” he says, finally reaching out and putting his hands on Gabriel’s hips, over the tshirt and the waistband of his shorts both before hesitantly nudging his fingers up underneath the shirt and then down underneath the waistband to pluck at—wait.

He’s touching bare skin.

“You’re not wearing underwear,” he murmurs.

“Wasn’t in the bathroom,” Gabriel says. “God knows where it’s gotten to, I’ll have to file a report with the—”

“It’s in the fucking sink,” Flip says, suddenly realizing, face absolutely burning up. “In the kitchen.”

“I’ll get it after,” Gabriel breathes. “For now—don’t move. Just relax.” He flashes Flip a grin. “Focus on me. I’m gonna slide off your lap now.”

“You’re not moving.”

Gabriel nods—but instead of going right for Flip’s cock, like Flip figures, Gabriel nuzzles his face into Flip’s neck, licks at Flip’s ear.

Flip exhales hard. “Tickles,” he murmurs.

“S’alright?”

“Yeah, please,” Flip says, tips his head so Gabriel can lick at him again, take Flip’s earlobe between his teeth and nibble on it gently.

Gabriel shifts his hand between their bodies, rubs his palm over Flip’s boxers.

Flip swallows. He just came, Gabriel just got him off earlier this afternoon…but he wants it again anyway. “Sorry, I—”

“Fuck,” Gabriel breathes. “Love feeling you get hard under my hand.” He squeezes gently, and Flip’s hips buck, breath catching in his lungs. “God, that’s good.” His eyelashes flutter, and he hangs his head, hand rubbing gently over Flip’s cock. “Love that.”

Flip takes a deep breath. Forces his head to the backrest, fakes that he’s relaxed when he’s just—trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do, what role Gabriel wants him to play, how he can make this good for Gabriel when he’s still not sure what Gabriel gets out of it. He can feel Gabriel’s heavy breathing on his bare neck, and Gabriel’s knees are dug into Flip’s thighs, his body heat imperceptible—but Flip knows he’s there, can feel the presence of him hovering above.

“—take your boxers off this time?” Gabriel is saying.

“Waste of time,” Flip mutters, self-conscious. He tilts his hips again, arches up against Gabriel’s palm. “Fuck, you’ve got good hands.”

“I’m only using the one,” Gabriel teases. “Wait till I get my second down here.” He tips his head up, looks around Flip’s room a moment. “Lube back in the bedroom?”

“Nah.”

“You do have it, though?”

“Why?”

Gabriel scoffs. “I’ll bring you some next time.”

“You didn’t answer—”

“Better if I show you,” Gabriel says. He straightens, and then moves down Flip’s thighs. “Gonna take that big cock of yours out.” His hand is so goddamn narrow that it slips right through the fly in Flip’s boxers, long fingers wrapping around Flip’s cock.

“Fuck,” Flip breathes, hands grabbing at the couch trying to keep still, completely entranced by the reverent look on Gabriel’s face as he slowly tugs Flip’s cock out. Everything’s fine until his cock is brought out into the light—but Gabriel just keeps looking at it, doesn’t put his mouth on it right away, and Flip winces. “Shut your eyes a minute,” he says. It’s awkward enough just knowing that Gabriel wants to look at his dick—he doesn’t think he can handle actually watching Gabriel do it, even though he’s most of the way hard now.

Gabriel’s eyes close obediently. “Kinky,” he says, in that low voice that Flip’s only heard him use during—well, during this.

“Don’t make it a thing,” Flip murmurs.

Gabriel twitches one shoulder up in a shrug, smile flickering at the edges of his mouth as he drags his hand slowly up the length of Flip’s cock, his other hand dragging down Flip’s chest to the base of his cock, wrapping his fingers around it. “Moving to the floor now,” he breathes. He shifts his hips, just slightly, almost rocking his clothed cock up against Flip’s exposed one—but then he exhales and then pushes himself back, stands up for a moment and stretches his arms over his head this time, his tshirt rising enough that Flip can see the vague shadow of his bellybutton, a light dusting of red hair, and it’s not until Gabriel kneels that Flip realizes he didn’t have a chance to get a look at Gabriel’s crotch, and has no idea whether or not Gabriel is hard. It’s a loss he feels acutely.

“Can I open my eyes now?” Gabriel teases.

“Thought this was a blowjob,” Flip says roughly. “Cock’s still—”

“I see how it is,” Gabriel interrupts. He grins, eyes still shut, and then reaches with his hands, pats around until he finds Flip’s bare knees, and presses them apart so he can move between them. “Lemme get that in my mouth, then.”

Flip feels all the tension leave out of his body in a rush the moment Gabriel’s mouth engulfs his cock, the moment the head of it presses against the back of Gabriel’s throat. Everything is wet and warm and welcoming. He groans without meaning to, but can’t feel self-conscious about it because Gabriel whines in response, swallows hard.

Then Gabriel’s eyes flicker open, and he looks up at Flip, Flip’s cock stretching his mouth wide, and Flip shudders.

“Holy fuck,” he breathes. “Gabe.”

Gabriel pulls back slowly, maintaining eye contact the entire time, covering Flip’s cock with his hand and stroking it loose and steady. “I’m here,” he rasps.

Flip doesn’t say anything, just reaches for Gabriel’s face and strokes his thumb along one sharp cheekbone. Gabriel tips his face into the contact, closes his eyes again as he strokes Flip’s cock, nice and slow.

“Hand looks so small,” Flip murmurs softly.

“Good for all kinds of illegal shit,” Gabriel responds, turning his head and pressing his lips against Flip’s palm for something that isn’t quite a kiss, but that Flip wholeheartedly wishes was. “Lockpicking, safecracking, hiding shit inside walls, back behind things, all that kind of stuff.” He exhales, lips moving against Flip’s palm as he speaks. “Your cock is just _massive_.”

“Right,” Flip says, breathlessly. “If you say so.”

Gabriel twists his hand on Flip’s cock, lightening his grip ever so slightly. “Gonna ask you something,” he says after a moment, face still buried in Flip’s palm. “Need you to take me seriously when I do.”

“Alright,” Flip says. He’s torn between watching Gabriel’s face, and watching Gabriel’s hand on his cock, and it’s getting more and more difficult to focus on either of them the more aroused he gets.

(It’s never like this when he jerks off—his usual ritual is perfunctory, and he thinks of nothing, and all those miles of nothing and endless blank spaces in his brain are being eclipsed by Gabriel, everything about Gabriel—the way he smells, the way his skin feels, the calluses on his hands, the way his hair, starting to dry now, is flopping down loose around his face again, and fuck masturbating without thinking of Gabriel—Flip doesn’t even think he’ll be able to get hard again without thinking of Gabriel.)

“I want you to put your hands in my hair,” Gabriel says. “And I want you to fucking pull. I want to choke on your cock, and a cock like that, it’s not gonna take much—but I want your hands in my hair when I do it.”

Flip takes a breath, opens his mouth to object—and nothing comes out.

“Please,” Gabriel whispers into his palm, face still mostly obscured by Flip’s hand. He does something with his hand—a quick twist of his fingers, thumb rubbing at the base of the head, and Flip gasps, fingers twitching against Gabriel’s cheek.

“Spit in your hand again,” Flip breathes. “And I’ll do it.”

Gabriel makes steady eye contact with Flip, and then spits directly on Flip’s dick.

The resulting rush of arousal makes Flip’s toes curl against the carpet, a punch right to his chest as his balls tighten up to his body. He wants to—cry, almost, because this is so much more than he ever would have asked for—but Gabriel is staring up at him expectantly, lips glinting in the light, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to press both hands into Gabriel’s hair, to tighten his fists around the red-gold strands.

“I’m gonna resist,” Gabriel warns. “But I’ll say _mercy_ if I want you to let up.”

“Yeah,” Flip says, and he tugs—and Gabriel resists, smirks at him, muscles in his neck straining.

Flip tugs harder, manoeuvres Gabriel’s head close enough to his dick that he can feel Gabriel’s exhales on the spit-wet head of his cock. “Suck it,” he says roughly. Then, he remembers what Gabriel was saying earlier. “Come on, criminal.”

Gabriel shudders, whines wordlessly. Opens his mouth.

Flip pulls his hair again, moves a little further down on the couch and tilts his hips, finally gets the head of his cock inside Gabriel’s mouth again. He shifts his left hand closer to the front of Gabriel’s head, lets go of the hair in his right hand and flattens his palm against the back of Gabriel’s head, presses him down.

Gabriel gasps, covers it by sucking hard at Flip’s dick.

Flip curls forward, scratches at the back of Gabriel’s head. “You alright there?” he asks, voice soft.

“Mmmhmm,” Gabriel murmurs. He lifts his head, and Flip lets him move freely. “So good,” he says, lips moving against the head of Flip’s cock. “Do it again.”

Flip nods, presses Gabriel’s head back down onto his cock. The couch cushion underneath him slips a bit, and he thrusts into Gabriel’s mouth. “C’mon,” he says, same rough voice as before. “That the best you can do?”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Gabriel says, trying to talk and fit more of Flip’s cock into his mouth at the same time. He mumbles something indistinctly, then sucks harder at Flip’s cock, his tongue doing—fuck, Flip has no goddamn idea what Gabriel’s tongue is doing except that it’s getting Flip closer and closer to coming.

“Harder,” Flip says. “More—fucking—Gabriel, fuck, I— _Gabe_ —” He can hardly concentrate on anything except the way Gabriel’s soft lips look stretched around his cock, the red flush on Gabriel’s face. “Should have—made you strip,” he says. “Searched you.”

Gabriel’s hands come up, one wrapping around the base of Flip’s dick, and the other stroking his balls. He nods his head, and Flip splays his hand possessively on the back of Gabriel’s neck.

“That’s right,” Flip breathes. “Fuck, I’m gonna—fuck, ‘m sorry—”

Gabriel looks up at him wordlessly, eyes pleading, and Flip clutches tight at his hair again, watches the way Gabriel’s eyelids flutter and his eyes roll back, hand working furiously on the base of Flip’s cock, and his other fingers on Flip’s balls, caressing back underneath—

Flip gasps, tugs on Gabriel’s hair and twitches his hips up into Gabriel’s mouth. Gabriel does something with his fingers, presses up behind Flip’s balls, and Flip realizes it’s a matter of seconds until he’s finished.

“Can I—come on your face,” he gasps. It’s a stupid request, it’s something he’s never thought of doing before, not once, but Gabriel is just so gorgeous exactly like this, and Flip wants to mark him even though Gabriel is unmarkable, possess him even though Gabriel is his own person and always will be, wants to do something to make his presence in Gabriel’s life memorable, so that he doesn’t just fade out of Gabriel’s thoughts the moment Gabriel crosses state lines—

Gabriel pulls off Flip’s cock with a wet _smack_ , mouth hanging open and eyes glazed. “Yeah,” he says, hand still working quick on Flip’s cock. “Do it.”

“Close your eyes,” Flip warns. “I’m—”

“Do it,” Gabriel insists, and he presses with his fingers behind Flip’s balls again, strokes Flip’s cock, and then opens his mouth, leaves it open, and Flip—Flip comes on Gabriel’s face, stroked to completion by Gabriel’s gorgeous, rough hands, unable to keep his own eyes open as his orgasm overtakes him, guts him completely and spits him back out again, and when he opens his eyes and comes back to himself, it’s to the sight of Gabriel O’Malley, face covered in Flip’s come, eyes closed, mouth still agape.

As Flip watches, Gabriel brings his hand up to his mouth—fingers shaking, just slightly—and brushes the tips of his fingers against his cheek, laps the come off.

(Flip shudders, aftershocks of his orgasm rippling through his body.)

Gabe is _smiling_.

Flip leans forward and presses his lips against Gabriel’s forehead, one of the only places on his face that’s still clean. “Was that what you wanted?” His voice sounds just as raw as he feels, the kind of thing that he usually wants to deny or hide—but he can’t hang onto this now, not when he needs to know that they’re still good, that it’s still—

“Yeah,” Gabriel rasps. He sits back on his heels, then strips off his undershirt and uses it to wipe off his face, tipping his head up to wipe underneath his chin as well. It’s the type of thing Flip should be watching—but he’s drawn, again, to the way Gabriel’s shorts are pulled over his crotch, to what looks like it might be the rise of his— “That was fuckin’ amazin’.” Gabriel swallows, coughs, and when Flip looks back up at his face, Gabriel is grinning. “You realize you’re a natural at this, right?”

“I don’t know,” Flip says, face warm. He reaches down beside the couch, pulls up his beer and hands it over to Gabriel. “Here,” he says. “Have something to drink.”

Gabriel tips the beer back, takes a long pull of it. “That’s real nice of you,” he says, voice gone soft.

Flips nods, voice gone completely, and lost to the grey storm vortex of Gabriel’s eyes.

* * *

They take turns showering—Gabriel first, because Flip insists, and because he’s too fucked out to bother getting up off the couch and doesn’t necessarily want Gabriel to know that, and then Flip immediately afterwards, the bathroom still full of steam. Gabriel’s clothes are hanging up on the towel racks now, instead of in the sink, and the bathroom sink is back to being pristine instead of filled with filthy water.

When Flip emerges from the bathroom, knees still a little wobbly, Gabriel has his head in the fridge, and Flip’s only two pots sitting on the stove.

“There’s leftovers in there,” Flip says, like he’s there to be helpful, and not just leaning against the wall staring at Gabriel’s ass.

“Never mind about those,” Gabriel says. “I brought food over.”

Flip leans over the fridge door, looks at the inside of his own fridge. Leftover takeout containers, and a bottle ready for Stensland when he wakes up, couple of plastic bags he doesn’t recognize. He contemplates putting his hand on Gabriel’s back, but can’t think of how to do it in a way that isn’t clumsy and awkward—but they’ve got time, right now. They’ve got so much time. There’s supper, and then playing with Stensland until he crashes, and then maybe—maybe flicking on the tv, sitting on the couch together, maybe—

“Do you ever shop for yourself?”

“I shop for Stensland,” Flip says defensively. “He has everything he needs.”

“And you’re living off take-out,” Gabriel says. He shoves at another styrofoam container, drags a plastic bag full of groceries closer to the front. “You can’t—”

“Look at the time,” Flip says, heading that conversation off at the pass. “I’ll go pick him up now. Back shortly.”

* * *

He’s whistling when he pads down the hall in his socked feet, takes the stairs down two at a time, and must still be smiling when he knocks on Carol’s door, because she looks vaguely surprised.

Stensland is sitting in a little rocker, gazing up at a mobile above him—but the minute Flip gets close, he looks over, and smiles at him, all gums. He feels so light, still, when Flip picks him up—and Flip knows Stensland isn’t always going to fit against his chest, exactly like this, but he does right now, and Flip is going to treasure it always.

He shoulders Stensland’s bag, looks back at Carol. “He have an alright day today?”

“He was good,” she says. “Drank lots of formula today, you might want to send extra tomorrow. I think he’s on a growth spurt.”

Flip nods. Grimaces. “The friend of mine that came by to pick up Stensland the other week.”

“Oh, yes,” Carol says.

“If he stops by again,” Flip says. “You don’t need to worry about calling me. He’s got a key to my place, it’s no problem.”

“Alright,” Carol says. She hesitates a moment, and then forges forward. “He overpaid me last time, I meant to tell you right away—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Flip says. “I don’t want any of that back, just—don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” she says. She smiles, then, reaches out and pushes back Stensland’s hair. “See you tomorrow, there, little buddy.”

Stensland coos at her, and then hiccups. Be damned if it’s not one of the cutest things Flip has seen him do.

* * *

“...and you remember Gabriel,” Flip says as he opens his apartment door. “He came to visit with you, and made us supper besides…”

But something’s wrong the moment he steps into the apartment.

For one, there’s only one place setting on the table.

And for two, Gabriel is standing right by the door, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, looking guilty. He’s wearing a nice pair of dress pants, if a bit tighter than what would be considered respectable and a dress shirt with a tie. His hair is combed.

“...you’re leaving,” Flip says.

“Yeah,” Gabriel says. “Business meeting.” He looks at Stensland, and something passes over his face that Flip can’t interpret. “He looks good.”

Flip’s first impulse is to hold Stensland tighter—but he finds himself stepping forward anyway, holding Stensland out like a peace offering. “Here,” he says. “At least hold him for a minute before you go, I’m sure they’ll wait that long for you.”

Gabriel looks like he wants to say no—but sets his bag down anyway, takes Stensland out of Flip’s arms and cradles him close in to his chest, murmuring to him softly. “Grown so big,” he’s saying. “Wish I could stay, you’re growing so big on me, you were so small before…”

His voice trails off.

Flip blinks, reaches for the warm open beer on the table and takes a drink of it just to keep his mouth busy for a moment. He knows Gabriel isn’t Stensland’s father, not any more than what Flip is, he knows, he knows—but Gabriel looks it, right now, red hair hanging down where Stensland can grab at it with his chubby little fist, eyes soft, voice soft, and it suddenly hurts more than anything that it’s Flip that sees Stensland every day, Flip that puts him to bed at night, Flip that gets up at three am when Stensland is fussing—but it’s Gabriel that rescued Stensland from wherever he was, and it’s Gabriel that doesn’t get to stay.

“I should go,” Gabriel says, finally, and he steps forward to hand Stensland back.

“Good luck,” Flip says.

“I need it,” Gabriel says, voice thick.

Flip nods, makes a point of not looking Gabriel in the eyes as he leaves.

It’s vulnerable enough for both of them right now.

No need to make it worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Notes:** The forest fires are triggering Flip's PTSD; he's not sleeping well this chapter | Gabriel is washing blood out of his clothes; brown-red water in the sink is mentioned, but there's no visible wounds and no followup re: the cause | minor miscommunication re: whether cop roleplay is sexy; Flip is firmly in the 'no' category, but comes around a bit later | past issues with alcohol referenced for both Flip and Gabriel | Gabriel spits in his hand to give a handjob | Gabriel has a scar on his knee from a baseball bat; no additional details given | more cop roleplay at the end; Flip is receptive and trying hard this time | Flip comes on Gabriel's face
> 
> Well, that's the halfway point! We've got four chapters remaining.
> 
> (If you noticed the discrepancy between Gabriel telling Flip last chapter that he pays too much for his sitter, and Carol telling Flip this chapter that Gabriel over-paid her when he picked Stens up the other day--you're doing better than Flip is, because he did not notice that at all. Nice attempt at whatever the fuck that was, though, Gabe.)
> 
> I've got [a blog entry for this chapter as well, over on my blog](https://heyktula.wordpress.com/2020/02/07/an-avenue-by-any-other-name-chapter-four/). It mostly talks about the sexual dynamic, but also gets briefly into some sad bastard backstory, just in case you want a teaser for the Gabriel-POV followup piece to this fic, since I have not drafted it, and have no idea when I'll get to it. (I didn't mean to contract Gabriel feelings, but they HAPPENED and it may be TERMINAL I just LOVE HIM I am sorry.)
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), where I tweet about kylux, adjacents, and rather a lot about The Terror, which is the other fandom I write for.


	5. Liminal Spaces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night shift puts everything off-kilter.
> 
> Flip adjusts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes are at the end!

Stensland is a warm weight against his chest, nestled into his neck, as Flip paces the apartment, living room to the kitchen and around to the hall, back to the living room. It wasn’t the fire dreams, not this time, but he doesn’t particularly want to put a name to the type of dreams that these ones were, so instead, he paces, Stensland’s little baby breaths huffing away into his shoulder, and tries to pretend that he’s okay.

It’s one am, and then it’s one thirty, melting into two. He tries going back to bed at two thirty, but realizes the moment that he lies down that there’s no hope, so he settles Stensland into the middle of the bed, goes out to the couch where he switches halfheartedly between channels on the tv. None of the stations are on the air at this time of night, so he leaves it on static, lets his vision unfocus, and pretends that it’s the same as sleeping.

He must doze off at some point, because when the phone rings at three in the morning, he jerks awake. Lunges to the kitchen, and answers the phone with his heart pounding in his ears. “Zimmerman here.”

There’s an odd noise on the other end of the line. “...’s that kid doin’?”

“Gabriel?” Flip squints at the clock, and then looks out the window to verify. “It’s three AM.”

There’s a broken chuckle on the other end of the line. “Five AM here,” comes the reply. “Sun’s juuuuuust startin’ to come up.”

Flip sighs, tugs at the phone cord. Slides down the wall till he’s sitting on the cold kitchen floor in his boxers. “You drunk?”

A deep inhalation and then an exhale. “Yeah,” Gabe admits. “You?”

“Got work in the morning,” Flip says—and then elaborates. “No.”

“Pity,” Gabe breathes. “I’d feel better about this call if you weren’t gonna remember it.”

“I’ll do my best to forget,” Flip says—tries to keep his voice dry, but hell, there’s part of him that wishes Gabe was here just so he could gather Gabe into his arms, because it almost sounds like Gabe would _let_ him, and three am is the kind of time where it doesn’t matter if that shit happens. “Stensland rolled over today,” he offers, finally, when the silence stretches on too long and he’s starting to get weird notions about Gabe’s breathing.

There’s a choked noise from the other end of the line.

Flip keeps talking. “I didn’t see it, Carol just mentioned it—said he might start doing it more often now, unless he’s particularly stubborn. She said he seemed pretty impressed with himself the first time, so maybe he’ll want to keep doing it. Maybe next time you’re through…”

There’s a pause so long on the other end of the line that Flip wonders if Gabe has passed out.

“...you always wanted to be a cop?”

“Yeah,” Flip says. It’s been as true as breathing for him, for as long as he can remember.

“Ever lost your nerve for it?” Gabe asks.

“No,” Flip lies, and then thinks better of it. “Yeah.” It was the lumbermill, because of course it was the lumbermill, and the repeated nightmares of Gabe’s corpse, half-burnt but with his eyes still open, sockets empty, and Flip can’t tell if he wants to tell Gabe that, or just let the conversation drift, because he’s being consumed by the thought of burying his face into Gabe’s hair, dragging his fingers down the back of Gabe’s neck.

“Butcher job, today,” Gabe says, and a chill goes down Flip’s spine. “Needed to be done. ‘E was a big fucker. A bull,” he adds, belatedly. “Rural job. For a...farmer. Meat. Steaks and stuff.”

“Ah,” Flip says. The lies don’t make it easier. They’d known about Gabriel’s activities in New York—it’d been part of his file. Just because he was running scams and fencing watches in Colorado Springs didn’t mean that he wasn’t also doing hatchet jobs back east. He’s not bothered by hearing it—but he’s bothered by the way Gabe has phoned him up to talk about it, as though Flip is supposed to comfort him when really, Flip should be doing the exact opposite.

“Looked a bit like you,” Gabe says. “Th’...steaks.”

Flip swallows, doesn’t say anything.

“The worst part is...fuck. I dunno why I’m even sayin’ anythin’. Maybe you’ll arrest me.”

“Probably should,” Flip answers quietly, even though he doesn’t want to. Even though he wants to do the exact opposite, just tuck Gabe away safely into his apartment, give him Stensland to hold, because if holding Stensland is helping Flip get through these fucking nightmares, maybe it’d get Gabe through this too. “...don’t want to, though.”

Gabe laughs on the other end of the line, quiet and broken and irregular. “Still fuckin’ covered in...” He swallows loud enough to be audible on the line, and then everything goes quiet for a few minutes before Gabe speaks again. “What’re you wearing, Zimmerman?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“What kind of question is that,” Gabriel mocks, his voice lilting and his accent gone sideways again. “What’d’ya sleep in?”

“Pyjamas,” Flip lies. “Shirt and pants, same as everybody else.” He counts to ten, quietly, in his head, watches the clock tick forward, wonders if he’ll ever have the courage to say anything or do anything, or if he’s just reliant on Gabriel coming in and out like the tide, standing on the shore and hoping that maybe, eventually, he’ll get swept out to sea.

Gabriel’s breathing on the other end of the line is so soft it’s nearly inaudible, but it’s regular, and it’s steady, and it draws Flip in, keeps him grounded.

After the second hand cycles around his clock a couple of times, Flip closes his eyes and tips his head back against the wall. “What do you sleep in?” he asks, feeling like the words are slicing down the centre of his chest, exposing his ribcage.

He doesn’t get a response.

When he opens his eyes, two hours later, it’s to his alarm going off in the bedroom, Stensland wailing in harmony with it, and dial tone in his ear.

He hangs up the phone to kill the connection.

Starts his day.

* * *

He’s pretty sure he sees Gabriel’s car, trolling slowly around the downtown core, but he’s still training the new guy, and it’s the new guy behind the wheel, and Flip is just stuck sitting in the passenger seat, tapping his fingers on the doorframe, and trying to figure out an excuse to get the fuck out of the car, run Gabriel down on foot, toss him up against the brick and—

“Hey,” his partner says—John, or James, or whatever. “That guy just ran a red.”

“Mmm,” Flip says.

“We should go after him?”

“Sure,” Flip says. He can see Gabriel’s car in the side window, just turning behind them.

He waits up most of the night, but there’s not so much as the scratch of a key in the lock.

* * *

“So,” Ron says casually. “You’re on shift this weekend, huh?”

“Yeah,” Flip says.

Ron shifts a bit closer, lowers his voice. “You got things worked out at home?”

“Yeah,” Flip says.

“Alright, then.”

“Well,” Flip says.

Ron turns back, raises his eyebrow.

“Carol’s out of town Monday, but I’m off work by then, so it’s fine.”

“Sure,” Ron says, “because you finish at six am Monday morning. And you’ll sleep...when?”

“Stensland sleeps.”

“He’s, what,” Ron says. “Four months?”

“Five.”

Ron exhales, looks down the hall a minute. Then, without looking back, he says, “I’ll pick him up Monday morning, seven thirty.”

“Look, you don’t—”

“Get some sleep, Flip,” Ron says. “You look like shit, you don’t grow a beard worth hell, and you haven’t even started shift yet.”

Flip grimaces, rubs at his face. “The beard’ll come in.”

“It really won’t,” Ron says.

“Look,” Flip says. “I don’t need this. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“See you Monday morning,” Ron says.

* * *

Ron shows up at seven twenty three, and Flip is so grateful that it’s tough to swallow for a minute.

“Packed him a bag with his toys and diapers in it—this other bag is the formula, this bag is—the rest of it.” Flip covers his mouth with the back of his hand, yawns wide enough to crack his jaw, then bends down and grabs the other bag, hands it over.

(Stensland is already asleep against Ron’s shoulder, like he hadn’t been fussing at Flip for the last forty-five minutes.)

“Hey,” Ron says. “It’s fine, I’ve got this.” He splays his hand across Stensland’s back, murmurs something quiet into the kid’s ear. “Don’t worry about it—I’ve got Natalia over at the house too, and she’s thrilled to have Stensland over there, been begging for a sleepover with the baby all week—sort yourself out, come by tomorrow afternoon, huh?”

“I’m sure I can—”

“Tomorrow,” Ron says, firmly. “In the afternoon. I’ll make burgers, you can come over and have one. Patrice’ll be by, I’m sure she’d like to see you.”

Flip raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. Just glances at Stensland again, wishes there was some way he could keep the kid here—but there isn’t, really, he feels like death warmed over, and once he falls asleep, he’s not gonna hear a goddamn fucking thing.

“Hey, Ron,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“...appreciate it,” Flip says.

Ron smiles at him, nods. “Get some sleep, Flip.”

“Yeah,” Flip says. “I will.”

He strips down to his boxers, leaves his clothes in the hall because he can. The apartment is dead quiet without Stensland, and his bedroom is dark, and his bed is comfortable, and when he closes his eyes, he instantly falls into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.

* * *

Something is tickling Flip’s ear. He rolls his face into the pillow, bats at his head.

There’s a low chuckle from beside him.

“Liar,” Gabriel says softly.

“Wha—?” Flip rolls over, squints into the darkness. He can’t see for fucking shit, but after a moment, his eyes adjust enough that he can see Gabriel’s vague shape, lying right next to him.

“I said,” Gabriel says, voice tinted with amusement, “that you’re a liar, Flip Zimmerman.”

Flip scrubs his hand across his eyes, blearily reaches over to the side of the bed to flick on the bedside light.

Gabe blinks, scrunches his face. He’s dressed down, looks freshly showered. His short-sleeved button-up shirt has the top two buttons undone, and his necklace is glinting in the light. He’s wearing navy pants, tight on his thighs, and Flip’s eyes get caught there, at the juncture of Gabe’s legs, the fly of his pants lying flat even though Flip wants—

“You told me,” Gabe teases, “that you slept in pyjamas. Button-up shirt, pants, the whole deal.”

Flip forces his eyes back up to Gabe’s face, his ears burning.

“Those are boxers, Flip,” Gabe says. Then he deliberately looks slowly down Flip’s chest, and then drags his gaze back up to Flip’s face. “And that’s one hell of a nice chest.”

Flip’s breath catches. “Kiss me,” he says.

Gabe grins at him. “Roll on your back,” he counters.

Flip does, reaching down to adjust his dick so it doesn’t stick out through the fly of his boxers. He’s conscious of Gabe looking at him, of the blunt shape of Flip’s dick pressing against his boxers, of absolutely everything that’s happening—and then Gabe swings his leg over Flip’s body, and sits down on Flip’s stomach, and Flip’s anxiety dissolves immediately. Gabe’s lips are back to being chapped again, rough against Flip’s own, and his breath smells like Flip’s toothpaste, and his hair smells like Flip’s shampoo, and Flip’s hands come up to Gabe’s head without thinking about it.

(He thinks, vaguely, that he was aiming for the back of Gabe’s head, that he was going to pull Gabe’s hair again, but his hands end up on the side of Gabe’s face, smooth-shaven cheeks under his hand, and he doesn’t want to move his hands at all, so he doesn’t.)

Gabe moans into his mouth, shifts his hips—and then his ass is rubbing right against Flip’s cock, and Flip’s entire body stiffens, all at once.

Gabe stops moving. “Okay?”

Flip whimpers.

Gabe makes a tsking sound. “Still gotta say something, Zimmerman,” he says.

“I wanna move you,” Flip manages, finally. His cock is throbbing. He simultaneously wishes he had the protection of jeans, and wants absolutely nothing between him and whatever Gabe is offering him right now. “Lemme put my hands on your hips.”

“Fuck yes,” Gabe says, pressing his lips against Flip’s in a heated kiss, and then sitting up sharply, undoing his buttons and then shrugging his shirt off.

His ass is sitting perched on Flip’s cock, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to grab for Gabe’s hips, tighten his hands and grind Gabe down against him. The rough friction of his boxers against his cock is almost agony, but Gabe’s body is warm, even through his pants, and there’s more bounce and give to his ass than Flip ever would have expected.

It’s intoxicating. Flip tips his head back, groans as he rocks Gabe’s body rhythmically against him. It’s probably the sleep deprivation, but Flip feels absolutely drunk, or high, like that time he’d smoked pot right before he’d joined the force and had spent the entire evening experiencing everything in a spinny kind of haze. It feels like that now—like his entire consciousness has narrowed down to his cock, and Gabe rocking on it, his head tipped back, eyes closed, hands in his own hair.

“Good,” Flip gasps, holding Gabe still for a moment and grinding his cock up against him, lifting both of them off the bed for a moment.

“You ain’t even inside me yet,” Gabe says, voice rough.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Flip swears, louder than he should be in the middle of the—day, afternoon, whatever the fuck time it is—and then he stops instantly, hands clenching on Gabriel’s hips as he bites down on his own tongue, tries to—

“Why’d you stop?”

Flip forces his eyes open, looks up at Gabe. Gabe’s face is flushed and his eyes are dilated, nipples perked up on his chest, and his—

—oh, and his cock visible through his pants, a hard line pressing against the navy fabric.

“Nearly came,” Flip manages.

“Why’d you stop,” Gabriel repeats. “Use me to get yourself off. Fuckin’ come on me.”

Flip shuts his eyes again, exhales hard.

“This is fine,” Gabe says, voice soft. His hand is on the side of Flip’s face. “If you want me to just blow you—”

Flip shifts his hands on Gabe’s hips, thrusts up against him again.

“Or that,” Gabe says, voice suddenly strangled. “Or you can just—fuck, yes, that.”

It feels absolutely natural to rut up against Gabe like this, to fall into the rhythm of the two of them rocking together. Gabe is utterly beautiful in the dim light of the bedroom, his hair falling loose, one hand balancing himself on Flip’s abs, and the other alternately tugging at his own hair or—or rubbing at one of his nipples, pulling and tugging at it, and Flip focuses through the haze of his own arousal, watches the way Gabe gropes his chest just so he knows for next time, so he can take Gabe apart as thoroughly as Gabe takes him apart.

Flip’s getting close. He can feel his orgasm building in his spine, weighting his balls, feels his breathing get shallower as it approaches. It’s like the previous times, where he’s pulled completely into Gabe’s orbit, into the sheer sexual presence of him—but unlike the previous times, where his orgasm pulled him completely inside himself, this time, he’s able to retain some awareness, is able to focus on the way Gabe looks this time, instead of just focusing on himself.

“Fucking hell,” Flip curses, entire body twitching as he comes against Gabe’s ass, squeezing Gabe’s hips and pulling their bodies tight together.

“Oh god,” Gabe mutters. “Holy _fuck_ , I can feel that.”

“Rock with me,” Flip says, his voice cracking in a way that he’s entirely too fucked-out to care about. “Still coming.”

Gabe whines, covers it with a hard exhale as his body slowly stills, his hips still shifting obediently with the slightest exertion of Flip’s fingers. The entire length of Gabe’s cock is visible through his pants, and Flip has absolutely no desire to stop doing this anytime soon, even though his come is soaking through his boxers and likely Gabe’s pants besides.

Flip takes a deep breath, tries to keep his face neutral as he squeezes Gabe’s hip with his left hand, and then slowly moves his hand around to Gabe’s ass, starts palming that too.

Gabe’s eyelids flutter. “Should leave,” he says in a soft whisper. “I’ll be back right away, I just—need a second—”

Gabe’s ass is firm underneath Flip’s palm, and it’s the easiest thing in the world for Flip to keep rubbing it, working his hand slowly underneath Gabe’s body until he can get a good handful of Gabe, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on Gabe’s pants.

“You look so good like this,” Flip breathes. He’s finally coming down from his orgasm, but he doesn’t want to get out of bed yet, doesn’t even want Gabe to get off his hips. The pressure of him there is comforting, and Flip’s thought process is slow and languid, but he’s enjoying this, he’s enjoying this so much.

Gabe squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t tempt me,” he whines. “I have to—I’ll never be able to sleep like this, I just—I’ll just be a second, fuck, I just—”

Flip thinks back to all the things that have made Gabe get that look in his eyes, anything he remembers ever consciously doing, but he can’t keep track of it, doesn’t know what the fuck about him Gabe finds so compelling in the first place because there’s nothing there, there’s absolutely nothing there at all—but he settles on lowering his voice, squeezing Gabe’s ass firmly at the same time. “Stay,” Flip says. “Just stay.” He tilts his hips, encourages Gabe to rock on him again. He takes his free hand, reaches back to his endtable and tugs open the drawer. The gun’s not here anymore, it’s tucked in a safe in the closet, but he’s still got—

Gabe huffs out a breath, rolls his hips. The way his cock is trapped in his pants like that can’t be comfortable, but he’s not complaining about it.

Flip kinda wishes he would.

“Give me your hand?” Flip asks.

Gabriel raises an eyebrow, extends his hand, palm-up. He’s still rocking gently against Flip, even without Flip’s encouragement. “I should really...mmm…”

“The other one,” Flip says, reaching into the drawer and feeling around with his fingers until he locates the—

Gabriel extends his other hand so that they’re both palm-up.

Flip places the key in the hand furthest away from him. Like he expects—because he knows Gabriel, at this point, no matter how he feels about that particular situation—Gabriel immediately closes his hand around it, and then peers at it, even though there’s no way he doesn’t know what it is.

“This is a—”

The movement is familiar and quick, and it takes only seconds to latch the cuff on Gabriel’s wrist.

Gabe stares at his other wrist, startled.

Flip holds up the free end of the police cuffs, swallows as he tries to put his words in order. “You can either,” he says, finally, “lean forward a touch, and I can attach it on the bedframe, or, uh—I can put it on myself, if you like, or I can, uh. Let go, because we never talked about this, and you can unlock yourself and, uh, deal with that.” He makes a vague gesture in the direction of Gabe’s cock—but then his eyes get stuck there, because there’s what looks like the smallest patch of wetness that’s seeped through Gabe’s pants, and it’s killing Flip, it’s catching his breath in his chest, it’s—Gabe is into this, Gabe is into this so much, and Flip has no idea why. “Please don’t go,” he blurts out. “I want to watch.”

Gabe is staring at him, eyes wide, mouth open. There’s no words coming out.

It’s the only time Flip has ever seen him shocked into silence.

“You’ve gotten me off so many times,” Flip continues. “And I just—”

“Three times,” Gabriel murmurs. “It’s only—”

“—want to watch you, this is—”

“—three times, that’s nothin’.”

“—new for me,” Flip finishes. He watches a series of expressions go across Gabe’s face, looks down and realizes that Gabe’s made no move to undo the cuffs, has actually—has actually set the key back down on the bed so that he’s not even holding it anymore. “Show me,” Flip says. He shifts the hand on Gabe’s ass, encourages Gabe to grind on him again. “Do you want to show me?”

Gabe shuts his eyes, puts his free hand behind his back and sticks his other hand out. “You’d better cuff me to the bed,” he says, voice gone rough. “As long as I’m not gonna scuff up your nice headboard.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Flip says. He tugs on the cuff and Gabe scoots forward until he’s sitting on Flip’s stomach instead of right on top of Flip’s soaking wet boxers. The seat of Gabe’s pants is damp, too, and instead of disgust, Flip feels a small shudder of arousal go through him. He locks the cuffs right next to his head, grabs the spare pillow and shoves it behind himself so he’s got a better angle to be able to see. Then, before he gets too distracted, he looks over, searches the sheets until he finds the glint of the key, and sets the key on top of the endtable. “I’ll give that back to you anytime.”

“Sure,” Gabe says distractedly. He gives an experimental tug on the cuffs, and the cuff drags over the knob of his wrist, but doesn’t slide off his hand, not even when he tucks his thumb in, tugs sharply.

“If they’re too tight, I’ll loosen them,” Flip says. “But I don’t want you sliding out of them unless you want that too.” He brings his free hand to Gabe’s hip, strokes the soft skin there. “You want out?”

“Nuh-uh,” Gabe breathes. He grinds down into Flip’s fingers, and then brings his free hand to the button of his pants. “It’s not gonna be much of a show,” he confides. “Got close feelin’ you come against me like that. Be thinkin’ of that the next time I’ve got my fingers up my ass.”

Flip shudders, tightens his hand on Gabe’s hip. “Yeah? You do that?” He can’t quite picture it, but suddenly finds that he wants to.

“As often as I can,” Gabe says. He flicks the button on his pants open with practised ease, tugs the zipper down over his hardened cock. Underneath, he’s wearing tight black underwear, the black so deep that they’ve gotta be new, or close to it. “Don’t always get the opportunity, you never know who’s gonna bust in on you in a hotel—”

“The fuck kind of places you staying at,” Flip breathes. He watches, fascinated, as Gabe dips his fingers under the waistband of his underwear, and then shifts his hand, tugs them down until he’s able to tuck the elastic under his balls. His hand is mostly covering his cock, but not completely.

Flip swallows.

Gabe’s pubic hair is orange. Of course it is, because so is the hair on his head, and the hair in his armpits. The hair on his legs and arms is closer to blonde than it is to red, but his pubic hair is—his pubic hair is definitely orange. There’s absolutely no mistaking it. He’s seen it before, in the shower, but he wasn’t trying to look, then.

He’s trying to look now.

Gabe’s balls are smaller than Flip’s, pulled up tight against his body right now, which might have something to do with how hard his cock is, now that Flip’s actually able to see it properly.

“Hey,” Gabe says. His free hand brushes Flip’s cheek. “You doing alright?”

“Fucking hell,” Flip says, unwilling to look away from Gabe’s cock. “Fuck yes, I am.” He hadn’t been wrong about the wet spot, either—he can see it glistening on the head of Gabe’s cock, another drop of fluid pearling at the tip even as Flip watches.

“You think about this?” Gabe asks. He curls his fingers loosely around his own cock, strokes his length in a long, exaggerated pull.

“Won’t be able to stop, now,” Flip says.

“Don’t want you to stop,” Gabe says softly. “Wanna know that you’re thinking of me, even when I’m not here.” He shifts the handcuffed hand, braces himself on Flip’s shoulder even as he tightens the grip on his other hand, strokes his cock. “I gotta leave again,” he says, as if in passing. “Got a job. S’the only reason I woke you up, don’t want you to think I’m normally that impolite.”

“I really don’t mind,” Flip says. He’s fascinated by the technique Gabe uses on himself—firm and sharp movements, completely opposite of the slow, languid way he touches Flip. “Wouldn’t have wanted to sleep through this.”

“Still, though,” Gabe says. “Night work’s a bitch.” His breath catches, and he yanks at the cuffs, metal rattling. “Ah, holy fuck. Can’t believe you keep those—right in your fucking endtable—the fuck else you got in there?”

“Not lube,” Flip says honestly. Fuck, the look of Gabe’s hard dick in his hand. “You’re gonna have to walk me through that.”

“Has to do,” Gabe gasps, “with the fingering thing—oh, fucking Christ, keep looking at me like that, Flip.” His hand is moving faster on his cock now, precome glinting off his fingers.

Flip moves his hands to Gabe’s thighs, mourns the fact that Gabe isn’t naked right now, that he isn’t watching the shift of Gabe’s muscles under his skin, that he can’t see absolutely everything about him, that he can’t feel—the shift of Gabe’s naked ass against Flip’s own bare thighs. “Holy fuck,” he breathes. “Make yourself come, Gabe.”

Gabe’s breathing catches and he whines. “Almost…”

Flip moves his hands to Gabe’s chest, pinches clumsily at his nipples the way Gabe had earlier—and Gabe’s entire body tenses.

Flip looks down just in time to see Gabe’s cock twitch as he comes, shooting semen onto Flip’s bare chest as Gabe bites off a noise that would have been a fuck of a lot louder if he hadn’t turned his head into his own shoulder.

(Gabe’s come is hot and Flip’s body shivers in sympathetic arousal, like the aftershocks of an orgasm that’s long since passed.)

“Christ,” Gabe breathes, voice shaky and unsteady. “Didn’t mean to come all over you, sorry about that.”

“S’alright,” Flip murmurs. He’s rubbing at Gabe’s nipples still, because they’re peaked under his fingers and because Gabe is rocking forward into it like he’s enjoying the sensations. “Worth it.”

“You doing okay?” Gabe asks, head tilting, and hair falling loose as he does it. “That...wasn’t too much?”

“No,” Flip says, conscious of how quickly his own heart is beating. “That was good.”

Gabe smiles, leans forward and kisses Flip on the mouth, slow, gentle, and with a lot of tongue. “I did mean it when I said I have to go,” he murmurs afterwards. “Got some stuff to take care of.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Flip warns.

“What,” Gabe asks, holding up his cuffed hand—and then, just as quickly, sliding his hand back out of the metal, and letting the cuff itself fall free. “Wouldn’t want to have to arrest me, officer?”

Flip narrows his eyes at him, but doesn’t say anything. It’d be safer if Flip went with him, but where Gabriel is going is somewhere that Flip can’t follow, and there’s no way for Flip to protect him—

“Don’t move for a minute,” Gabe says. “I’ll bring you back a cloth, clean you up. Make you respectable again.”

Flip nods, stares down at the splatter-mess on his chest and stomach once Gabriel disappears into the bathroom. Hesitantly dips a finger into it, and then brings the finger to his mouth.

It’s—rapidly cooling, and tastes—bitter, and odd.

It’s probably the kind of thing Flip could get used to.

(It’s the kind of thing he wants to become routine.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Notes:** Flip has a brief flashback to an imagined version of Gabe's corpse | Gabriel admits to having killed someone who reminded him of Flip | Flip is a bit self-conscious throughout; everything is okay | the handcuffs come out before the handcuff negotiations do; the negotiations happen right after |
> 
> I've got [a blog entry for this chapter as well, over on my blog](https://heyktula.wordpress.com/2020/02/14/an-avenue-by-any-other-name-chapter-five/). It talks a bit about the rural job, a bit about babies-as-recovery, and also a bit about liminal spaces, and transition points.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), where I tweet about kylux, adjacents, and the Terror.


	6. Growth Spurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes, things change.
> 
> Stensland is growing. It was inevitable that he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes are at the end, as usual.
> 
> The wonderful [Fauxtalian](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1) continues to provide amazing art--please consider commissioning her, she's been absolutely lovely to work with.

There aren’t any dead bodies that show up in Colorado Springs or the surrounding area. Not the week Gabe’s there, not in the three week period after he leaves. Flip supposes it means either no dead bodies happened, or Gabe covered his tracks when they did.

(He tries not to think about Gabe driving that shitty car of his all the way back to New York, with chunks of corpses crammed into suitcases in the trunk. It’s none of his business what Gabriel does, and he’s not going to get involved with it.)

Flip spends more time waiting for the phone to ring than he’d like to admit. It’d be stupid to keep a list of Gabe’s phone numbers in his own handwriting—so Flip tucks that piece of paper into the small safe he keeps in the back of his closet, recopies the numbers and labels them with benign things. It feels okay, then. Less obvious.

He doesn’t call, though.

He just waits.

* * *

“Christ,” Ron says. “Look at the eyes on him.”

Flip cracks open another beer, sets it down on the endtable next to where Ron is holding Stensland, bouncing him on his knee while Stensland stares at him with his mouth open.

“Won’t have any trouble passing him off as Gabriel’s,” Ron continues.

Flip takes a drink of his own beer, watches the easy way Ron holds Stens, the way he bounces the kid like he’s not worried about him falling off or losing his balance, or any of that.

Tries not to think about passing the baby off, because that means Flip will need to let him go.

“He can sit up on his own, now,” Flip offers. “Not that steady, mind, but he doesn’t seem to mind falling on his face either.”

Ron chuckles. “Look at you,” he says softly to Stens. “Sitting up on your own and everything! And Flip’s so proud of you, and I hardly ever see him being proud of anything.”

“Hey,” Flip says.

Stens burbles, flails his chubby little hands.

“You thought about what you’re gonna do?” Ron asks.

“How d’ya mean?”

Ron gives him a look. “He’s not gonna stay this size forever.”

“So I’ll get him bigger clothes.” There’s a running list on the kitchen counter anyways, a bunch of shopping Flip will have to do on the weekend when he’s got a couple of days off—the kid’s grown out of his damn pants again, and his little belly keeps peeking out from the bottom of his shirt. It’s fine now, because it’s summer yet, but when the winter shows up, Flip doesn’t want the kid getting a chill.

“He’ll have questions,” Ron says.

Flip takes a drink of his beer, but doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing to say—he has no idea what the fuck is going to happen, who’s going to be around, whether they’ll still be living here, in this apartment, or whether the three—whether the two of them are going to have to move. It’s too early to know. Way too early to make any decisions. Nothing to do but wait it out, like usual.

“How’s Patrice?” Flip asks.

Ron shifts, sets Stensland down on the couch between them, wipes the drool off his hand onto his jeans. “Doing well,” he says. “Home this week, but headed down to Boston next week. She’s getting more speaking engagements all the time.” The pride lights up his entire face as he speaks.

It’s an easy thing for Flip to just settle back and listen to him, to extend his hand so that Stensland can clench onto his finger and just listen, catch up on Ron’s life.

It’s almost like old times.

Not quite, but almost.

* * *

Carol gives him a curious look as he opens the door, and then flat-out laughs as Flip shoves a mess of straps in her direction wordlessly. “You might as well come in,” she says. “I’m hopeless with these things—Rae? Rae, we need your expertise here.”

Carol’s roommate comes over, holding Carol’s kid on her hip. She takes one look at the carrier, and then one look at Flip. “Well, it’s inside out for one thing,” she says, her voice a quiet drawl. “Here, trade you.”

Flip watches as Rae takes the carrier, does something with the mess of straps, turning them inside out and then back the other direction again. She peers up at him, and then makes some adjustments to the length of the straps, tugging them all out to their full length. “Here,” she says, after a few minutes. “I’ll take Stensland, and I’ll talk you through this thing—it’s basically like a backpack, only in reverse. You’ll have to be flexible enough to clip the straps behind your back here.”

Flip nods, hands over Stensland, and picks up the carrier again. Now that the straps aren’t all snarled, it makes a little more sense—and with Rae giving him instructions, he’s finally able to get the fucking thing on, get it secured in the back, and loosened in the front so that he can lower Stensland down into it.

“It’ll let you put him in both ways,” Rae says. “Facing out, or facing in—from what I’ve seen, he likes looking at things, so if you’re planning to use this to take him outside while the weather’s still good…”

“Yeah,” Flip manages. “That’s what…yeah. While the weather’s good.”

“It’s good,” Rae says. “It’s good for kids to be outside. We try and get Rosie out as often as we can.”

“Right,” Flip says. “Thanks for giving me a hand with this—I was damn close to trying to return the thing.” He takes Stensland back from Carol, carefully lowers him into the baby carrier facing outward. Stensland giggles as Carol reaches for his legs, guides his feet through the holes at the bottom until he’s comfortably seated in there.

He doesn’t miss the way that Rae leans in close to Carol, touching her hip as she takes Rosie back, or the way that Carol murmurs something softly to her as Flip and Stensland leave.

He just doesn’t think about it, that’s all.

(The park is good, and Stensland likes the carrier. He’s asleep in it by the time Flip gets back an hour or so later, a leaf clenched in his tiny little fist.)

* * *

Flip calls that night. Starts closer to Colorado Springs, like he’s hoping Gabe will be there, within shouting distance. Keeps moving further and further away.

When he finally calls New York, it’s a woman who picks up.

“I’m looking for Gabe,” Flip says.

“Not here,” the woman says. She’s got a thick New York accent, and it sounds like she’s chewing gum while she’s on the call. “Wan’ me to leave him a message?”

“Just tell him I called,” Flip says, and then he hangs up before he says something stupid.

Realizes afterwards that he never left his name.

* * *

The weather’s lovely that weekend. Flip walks Stensland to the park after supper, because Stensland doesn’t sound like he’s sleepy, and Flip figures it’s good to get out while they still can, before the snow comes. Stensland is in the carrier again, energetically kicking his feet and waving his arms around, making little noises every time something moves in his vicinity.

“See the bird?” Flip is saying softly. “Right over there in the grass. Picking away for worms. You want some worms to eat? I mean, I know you would, but I’m not gonna let you, those aren’t any good for your tummy.” He turns as the bird flies away from them, making sure Stensland can keep looking at it—and catches the tail end of a vehicle pulling away from the park that he’s ninety percent certain is Gabe’s.

It nearly kills Flip to stay in the park until Stensland starts getting tired, like he’d originally planned, and he fully expects to see a gun on the side table when he goes into their apartment—but the gun isn’t there, and neither is Gabriel.

* * *

He’s not going to call again.

* * *

He starts in New York this time, calls all the numbers from east to west, all the way back to Utah. Is looking at hotels in Salt Lake City trying to figure out where Gabriel would likely be staying before he realizes he’s being an idiot.

He pours the rest of his beer down the sink, and goes to bed. Lies awake, listening to Stensland breathe.

After a couple hours of that, he gets out of bed, goes to the bathroom. Drinks cold water straight from the tap, then splashes more water on his face. Tries to figure out what it is that Gabriel saw in him, and whether Flip did something to make that stop, but can’t come up with anything, and—it doesn’t really matter, does it?

It shouldn’t, at least.

It shouldn’t matter at all.

When he goes back to bed, he lies on his side, watches Stensland breathe. The kid’s taken to sleeping on his stomach, his face squashed into the mattress.

After a few minutes of that, Flip cautiously extends one of his hands, rests his fingers against the bottom of Stensland’s tiny foot.

The kid smiles in his sleep.

It’s unrelated, but it still feels nice.

* * *

Time goes by.

Stensland keeps getting bigger. The baby carrier means that Stensland and Flip are a pretty common sight in the neighbourhood, trekking through the parks whenever Flip isn’t working. He figures that once Stensland gets a bit bigger, he might start driving out of town a bit, doing some of the hikes up in the mountains. But for now, it’s maybe better to stick close to home.

Not that there’s any particular reason for it—there’s nothing keeping him here. His phone doesn’t ring either at the precinct or at home, there’s nothing getting left at his doorstep, and he and the kid have been the only people in the apartment for weeks now.

It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

They’re doing fine.

“We’re doing fine, aren’t we,” Flip says softly.

Stensland grins at him. “Bababa,” he says solemnly.

“Bababa to you too,” Flip says. “Do you want another piece of apple?” He holds the thin slice out, waits until Stensland has grabbed it with his chubby little fist, smashed it into his own cheek. Flip sighs, leans forward and starts picking up the pieces. “Okay, buddy, we gotta try this again. You gotta open your mouth.”

“Bababa,” Stensland says, but when Flip holds out the crushed pieces of apple, Stensland starts giggling, and then Flip is grinning too.

(See? They’re fine. They’re doing just fine.)

* * *

It’s a rare event at the station—things quiet down around noon, and Flip is able to leave the precinct to grab a sandwich for lunch. He’s cutting through an abandoned lot on the way back—it used to be a parking lot when there was still a business here, but the building’s been boarded up for ages, so now it’s just gravel and weeds—and he’s just hit the sidewalk, is turning back to the precinct, when he sees Gabe’s car parked across the street, and Gabe sitting inside it.

Gabe doesn’t see him—partly because he’s not looking, is leaned over to the passenger window, chatting to someone on the street, and partly because Flip instinctively fades right back into the background, back next to the empty building, hand clenched around the paper bag his sandwich is in.

Gabe looks good. Healthier than the last time Flip saw him, like he’s maybe getting some sleep every once in a while.

As Flip watches, Gabe nods, slides back over to the driver’s side. Doesn’t bother turning the vehicle on, just produces a cigarette from somewhere, lights up, and lays his head back against the headrest of the driver’s seat.

It would be the easiest thing in the world for Flip to go over there, ask what he’s up to. Ask how his day’s been. Ask if he’ll be by later.

Instead, Flip turns around, and heads back to the station.

He doesn’t know what any of this is.

He doesn’t want to upset the fragile balance of it by poking at things.

The thought of Gabe not coming to visit him hurts.

But the thought of driving Gabe away hurts more.

* * *

Flip steps inside his own apartment, and doesn’t even get his keys set down before he realizes that something is off.

For one thing, there’s a gun on the table where he usually puts his keys.

For another, he can hear Gabe breathing in the living room.

Scratch that.

He can hear Gabe _panting_.

Flip slips his shoes off, swallows. “Hello?”

There’s no response, but it would be just like Gabe to ignore him, or to be sleeping, trapped in the grip of a nightmare, or—

Gabe whines, high-pitched and almost immediately muffled.

Flip is moving down the hall before he consciously makes the decision, one-two-three steps and—

“Holy _fuck_ ,” he breathes.

Gabe’s head turns sharply to the side as he flips a towel over his hips before his entire body goes still, eyes darting back and forth before he exhales. “Jesus fucking Christ, Zimmerman, warn a guy. At least you’re alone.”

He’s naked.

He’s naked, sprawled out on a towel on Flip’s couch. His left hand is holding the towel over his hips, fingers slick-wet in the light, and his right hand is stretched out, handcuffed to the leg of Flip’s coffee table.

His pale skin is flushed, colour high in his cheeks.

Flip takes a deep breath, sorts through all the things hurtling through his mind, and starts with the most innocuous one. “Pretty sure I left my handcuffs back in the bedside table.”

(He feels like he’s been punched in the stomach, had the wind kicked out of him.)

Gabe sighs, handcuff clinking as he shifts. The towel covers his hips, but his legs are very bare, and so is his chest, nipples tight and peaked. He closes his eyes. “You did.”

“Thought so,” Flip says. He takes another step into the room because he can, because it’s his goddamn room, and his coffee table, and his couch, and his cuffs, and because Gabe has his eyes shut, can’t see Flip moving or the way that Flip stares. “I don’t mind.”

Gabe’s eyes flutter open, eyes doing a slow, lazy scan of Flip’s body, feet to face. “That’s good.” He bends his legs, flattens his feet onto the couch cushions to make space at the end of the couch. “Feel free to sit down.”

“Really?”

“Said so, didn’t I?” Gabe shifts on the couch. “You’re not obligated, of course.”

Flip swallows. Crosses in front of the tv, sits down on the far end of the couch, body turned toward Gabe. Hesitates—but then figures, fuck it, and reaches out, rubs his thumb along the arch of Gabe’s foot.

Gabe’s breath catches, and there’s a moment where Flip wonders if he’ll shift his foot away—but then he just presses forward into it, like he wants Flip’s hand on him. Flip turns to the side, crossing his legs on the couch cushion, and tugs Gabe’s foot into his lap so that he can touch it with both hands at once, watch the way Gabe sighs, leans back into the couch.

It feels—good. It feels _domestic_ , which is something that Flip never imagined being comfortable for him, always associated it with a feeling of being trapped—but, then, he’d never imagined that this was an option. That _Gabe_ was an option.

“So,” Gabe breathes, moving his other foot into Flip’s lap as well, pointing the toes so that they just barely brush against the crotch of Flip’s jeans. “You came home early. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Yeah,” Flip says, and then realizes he should probably offer more information. “Nothing much going on at work—and Carol offered to take Stens to a birthday party tonight, so I won’t pick him up until later.” He looks down at Gabe’s pale feet in his lap, the slight hint of red-blonde hair visible on his bare legs, even though it’s mostly transparent in the light. “Much later.”

“Mmm,” Gabe says. “That’s convenient, because as it turns out, I was in the middle of something when you arrived.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Gabe breathes. “You want me to resume?”

Flip takes a deep breath, suddenly conscious of how warm he is. “One second.” He uses one hand to lift both Gabe’s ankles, and the other to undo his pants, standing long enough to let them fall down his legs where he can kick them off. His face is hot when he sits back down on the couch, back against the arm of it, and he expects Gabe to laugh at him any moment now, but Gabe just puts his feet right back where they were between Flip’s legs.

“Don’t need to look concerned,” Gabe says mildly. “I’m having a nice time.”

“…right. You can, uh. Resume.”

“You sure?” Gabe lifts his left hand slightly, wriggles his fingers where he’s still handcuffed to the coffee table. “You alright with this?”

Flip hesitates—and then, quick as anything, Gabe shifts his wrist, pops his hand out of the cuffs. “You can watch me use both hands, now.”

“Didn’t properly see you using one,” Flip says gruffly.

Gabe flashes him a cockeyed smile, gone so quick that Flip isn’t entirely certain it was ever there. “Watch closely, then. Unless you want the cuff back on?”

Flip hesitates. He wants to push it further—tell Gabe to pick up right where he left off, wants to lean forward and grab the cuff, hook both of them together—but he doesn’t want to start in with that for fear that he’s just going to tap into some prior history Gabe has that Flip doesn’t know about, some kind of—fetish thing, for cops, because he’s seen bits and pieces of it, and if that’s what this is, if that’s what Gabe sees in him, it won’t lead to any of the…the other things Flip is beginning to think he might want, the softer things, and it’s too early to know that now…

Gabe shifts on the couch, feet briefly pressing against Flip’s inner thighs. “Maybe you should hand me that other towel.”

The towel’s perfectly within Gabe’s reach, folded on the floor next to the couch, but Flip leans over and grabs it anyway, Gabe’s feet pressing into his stomach as he does. When Gabe reaches forward to take it, their fingers touch, and Flip feels all the hair on his arm standing up. He brushes his thumb against Gabe’s hand, and Gabe’s mouth quirks at the corner before he takes the towel, tucks it under his hips on top of the one that’s already there.

“Don’t wanna get lube on your upholstry,” Gabe says softly. “It’s better for this kinda stuff if there’s a lot of it.”

“Right,” Flip says.

“You can touch me wherever you want,” he says, toes rubbing alongside Flip’s thigh.

“Alright.” Flip swallows, hard. “You normally spend this much time shooting the shit?”

Gabe laughs, and then shifts the towel off his lower body. “I was close when you came in,” he confides. “Couple of minutes later, and all you’d have showed up for is the mess.”

“Didn’t mind the mess last time,” Flip says. He wishes he could look at Gabe’s face and his crotch both, and it’s a tough decision, but Gabe’s eyes are so warm right now that they command most of Flip’s attention, especially because he’s just steadily watching Flip, like he’s going to change what he’s doing based on what Flip needs, and Flip feels—hot underneath that.

Feels _wanted_.

“Now,” Gabe says. “You wanna spend your time looking at my dick? Because if that’s what you want, I’ll sit up.”

Flip glances down, now. Gabe is hard, stroking his cock casually with a loose grip. “You know I love looking at it...”

“Well,” Gabe says, “you hadn’t explicitly said as much, no—but for somebody that works undercover, you’ve got a fuck of a poor poker face in your private life.” He reaches out, touches Flip’s arm. “Hey, don’t look put out about it—it’s nice.” Gabe sighs, shifts a little. “I prefer this version of you, actually. Thought you were plenty hot undercover, but there’s something about the real Flip Zimmerman that just...really does it for me.”

It’s as close as they’ve come to any kind of emotional confessions. Realistically, it’s not likely they can have anything more than this—gaps in each other’s lives that sometimes align, but mostly they don’t, mostly they’re just barely missing each other, and if Flip is lucky, maybe the gaps will align a little bit longer, long enough for him to figure out what he can say to make Gabe stay—

“But,” Gabe says. “If you wanna spend your time watching what I’m doing with my other hand, maybe I should lay down.”

“Do that,” Flip says, heart hammering in his throat. He grips Gabe’s ankles, shifts them so that one is on either side of his body, and gives a soft tug. “I’ll still be able to see your cock.”

“Balls will be in the way,” Gabe teases, but he does it anyway—shuffles down until he’s able to lie on the couch with the top of his head touching the arm, and his feet braced against Flip’s chest.

Flip has an unobstructed view of the smooth expanse of Gabe’s thighs. He leans forward, runs his fingertips along Gabe’s skin.

“Yes,” Gabe purrs. He moves his feet until they’re flat on Flip’s thighs, tilts his hips and shifts the towel, and Flip just...stares.

Gabe’s ass is just as perfect now as it was when Flip saw it in the shower. Round and soft-looking, paler than the rest of his skin even though he’s already plenty pale. The hair on his balls is sparse enough that Flip can see the seam running down the middle. Reaches forward, drags his fingers along it. The skin there is a different texture than the skin on his thighs, and Flip is enamoured, completely. He traces down Gabe’s balls, and then around behind. Pulls his finger away, and rubs it against his thumb.

It’s slick.

When he looks up, Gabe has his head tipped up, resting awkwardly on the armrest. He’s watching Flip intently, his hand stilled on his cock but his thumb still absently brushing the hard shaft of it.

“Your turn,” Flip breathes.

“Alright,” Gabe says. He brings his other hand out of the towel, hands Flip a small plastic bottle. “Uncap that, would you?”

Flip takes it without thinking, glances at the label. Lubricant. There’s a smear of it already on the cap. Flip thumbs it open, hands the bottle over to Gabe. Watches Gabe re-slick his fingers, and then snap the bottle shut and set it aside.

“You want to make sure your fingers are pretty slicked up,” Gabe is saying quietly. “On account of you and I ain’t self-lubricating, so if anything is going in there, it’s gotta be greased up good.”

Flip feels a little light-headed, and can’t quite tell whether it’s from the thought of slicking up something of his own for Gabe or whether it’s just the situation, Gabe laid bare in front of him, sprawled out and _watching_.

Gabe puts his hand between his own legs, and slides his fingers between his ass cheeks. Tilts his hand, and sighs, contentedly, as his fingers press inside, thumb underneath his balls. “You can kind of,” he says, his voice slightly uneven, “get to it internally and externally this way—internally with my fingers, externally with my thumb, do you see where I’m pressing there?”

“Yeah,” Flip says. It takes him two tries to get the word to even come out, and his mouth feels like it’s full of sand. He swallows, then swallows again. “You were doing that to me when you were blowing me on the couch.”

Gabe shudders, tilts his hips, putting pressure on Flip’s thighs with his feet as he does. “Yeah,” he says. “I was. It feel good for you?”

“It did.”

“Feels good for me too,” Gabe says. “Especially—ah, fuck—from the inside.” His feet press against Flip’s thighs as he shifts again, and then he drags his left foot over to the crotch of Flip’s boxers, rubs the sole of his foot against Flip’s erection. “You wanna touch yourself while you watch?”

“Fine just watching,” Flip says, voice low—and then he grabs Gabe’s ankle as the pressure on his cock lessens. “You can keep that there, though.”

Gabe gasps, and then chuckles. “Alright.” There’s a wet slick sound coming from between his legs as he fingers himself.

Flip counts to three before talking, tries to keep control of his voice. “I like the pressure.”

“I swear your cock is bigger than my foot,” Gabe says breathlessly. His hand keeps shifting between his legs, other hand moving steadily on his cock. “Christ, you’re a monster.”

Flip’s entire face feels hot. “Come on, focus.”

“I can do both at once,” Gabe says. Then he lifts his head, peers at Flip. “D’ya want me to stop complimenting you?”

“Don’t ask me that,” Flip says. “Not now, just—fuck, I can’t see anything.” He leans forward, presses a kiss to Gabe’s knee. “Can I shift you a bit?”

Gabe exhales, both his hands stilling. “Manhandle me,” he breathes, eyes fluttering shut.

Flip swallows. Nods, and realizes immediately afterwards that Gabe won’t be able to see it, but given the choice between saying it verbally and just moving Gabe, it seems more important to move Gabe. He reaches for Gabe’s hips, grasps him there, where he’s soft and his skin is warm. Tugs Gabe forward, and then balls up one of the towels and tucks it underneath Gabe’s ass so that he’s actually tilted upwards a little bit, and when Flip does that, Gabe’s legs fall apart, and Flip can suddenly see _everything_.

Gabe has two fingers shoved up his ass. Everything there is slick with lube, all up the crack of his ass, and his hole is stretched around his two fingers, pinker than what Flip had expected.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Flip says. “ _Gabriel_.”

Gabe chuckles. “You like that, huh? Well, you’ll like this, then.” And he slides his two fingers out, leaving his ass open wide.

It looks...welcoming. Wet, and warm, and Flip puts his hand on his own cock without thinking about it, presses down on it while he slides his other hand down Gabe’s leg.

“Watch me,” Gabe says, and he brings his hand back to his ass, his first, second, and third fingers pressed together, and then slowly pushes all three of them inside, his breath coming faster and faster as he does, his other hand moving steadily on his cock as he jerks himself off. “I want you to see how ready I am—I want you to see how much I like this—I want—I want—Flip—fucking hell, Flip—watch me—”

“Fuck yourself,” Flip says. He hardly recognizes his own voice. “I’m watching you fuck yourself.”

Gabe gasps, his back arching up off the floor, and his wrist stilling.

Time slows.

There’s Gabe’s ass, stretched tight around his three fingers. There’s the angle of his wrist, the golden hairs there glinting in the light, a smear of lube on the underside of his wrist, just barely visible. The muscles in his thighs, tight. His toes, pressing into Flip’s legs, pressing against Flip’s cock. The veins standing out on the back of his other hand, gripped tight on his cock. He’s—he’s coming, all over himself, on his stomach up to his chest, to his nipples. His mouth is open, voice soundless. Hand moving sharp on his cock, and then slower.

Slower.

(There’s semen glistening on his hand.)

There’s Gabe, panting, his hand moving softly, languidly on his cock, his muscles all relaxing one by one as he lowers his body back to the couch, gently pulls his hand from between his legs.

“Let me feel you?” Flip hardly recognizes the sound of his own voice.

Gabe blinks up at him vaguely. “Where?”

“Pass me the lube.”

Gabe’s face goes bright red, but he takes his hand from his softening cock, hands the lube over. Flip thumbs the cap open again, drizzles it over his fingers. It’s cold, thick, slightly tacky. Flip watches Gabe’s hand as he does it, mentally calculating the difference in size between Gabe’s fingers and his own, and focuses his efforts on his first two fingers.

(His fingers are nowhere near the size of his cock, and just that thought has Flip so close to coming that he starts thinking about guns instead. Guns and target practice and pacing out the appropriate distance from the target. Anything so that he doesn’t come in his shorts the way he’s sorely tempted to do.)

“You don’t need to drown ‘em,” Gabe says softly.

Flip looks up at him, and then down at his own fingers, which are dripping lube down onto the towels, feels hot and flustered at his own inexperience, and—

“Please,” Gabe continues, his voice almost a whine. “Please, if you—Flip. _Please_. I’ll die if you don’t.”

“Liar,” Flip breathes.

Gabe’s mouth quirks.

Flip shifts closer, places his fingertips right on Gabe’s hole. “You want my fingers here, even after you already came?”

Gabe flattens his hands on the towels beside his body, taps his fingertips impatiently. “Please,” he says. “Please don’t make me beg, Flip.”

“Won’t,” Flip manages. He’s not doing it on purpose, but drawing it out is giving him a little bit of breathing room, gets him a little further away from his own orgasm, because he doesn’t want to press his fingers into Gabe and come immediately, even if it’s something Gabe wouldn’t mind—feels, oddly, like he needs to make a better show of it, do something to make Gabe proud of him. He’s wanted to be inside another man for so long that this feels like the culmination of everything. Like going too fast through this moment will be wasting something that he’s never going to be able to get back.

“You know,” Gabe says, “I can just rock my arse back onto you.”

“Don’t take this away from me,” Flip mutters.

“I’m not rushing—”

Flip takes a deep breath, and then slowly presses inside Gabe. It’s not at all what he expects—Gabe is tight, and hot, his smooth walls squeezing Flip’s fingers so tightly that Flip’s other hand goes automatically to his own cock, pressing it down as though he can hold himself back from—anything.

“Oh, Christ,” Gabe says. “Fuck, your fingers are glorious.”

Flip can hardly breathe. It’s ridiculous that he’s never done this before—that he didn’t get Gabe on his fingers the minute that he first saw him three years ago, that he hasn’t had Gabe on his cock yet—but he’s not going to fuck Gabe for the first time on fucking towels on his living room floor, or on the goddamn couch. Gabe deserves better than that, Gabe deserves—a nice bed, and a nice date, a meal in an expensive restaurant, and—some kind of big city thing that Flip won’t be able to provide for him here, some kind of lifestyle that Flip is never going to be able to wrap up and hand over, things that Gabe’s probably used to from—from—

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gabe gasps, his back arching again and his feet pushing at Flip’s thighs. “Oh, god, are you doing that on purpose or accident, holy fuck, Christ, I can’t tell if I want you to stop or keep going, fuck, I’ll never get hard again this soon—fuck, fuck—can you just—ah, _Jesus_ —”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Flip manages. He shifts his fingers a little, and Gabe writhes underneath him.

“Towards my stomach,” Gabe gasps. “Feel that, on the upper wall? Kinda—different texture, almost—oh, Christ, fuck, if I could come again—Flip—oh, fucking hell, how haven’t you come yet?”

Flip looks down at himself vaguely. He’s up on his knees now, doesn’t remember when he shifted position. His fingers are deep inside Gabe, and his other hand is clenched on the fabric of his boxers.

“You can,” Gabe says, breathless. “I don’t mind—it’d be hot as fuck—”

“Yeah?” Flip asks, unclenching his hand and shoving his boxers down his thighs, hunching over Gabe. “This okay?”

Gabe nods, his eye contact steady. “Yeah.”

Flip strokes himself, shudders, and shuffles a little closer to Gabe, until his thighs are pressing up against Gabe’s calves, until he’s grounded himself against Gabe’s body. He looks down, tries to memorize the details of everything—Gabe’s orange pubic hair, his soft cock oozing onto his hip. The semen spattered all over his stomach, up to his chest. Flip wants nothing more than to add to it, to lean over Gabe, tug him in close. He reaches for Gabe, clenches his other hand on Gabe’s knee, rubs his thumb over the scar there. Jerks himself off, his grip firm and steady. This is what he wants, this is everything that he wants—Gabe, beneath him, not cuffed or held, just—just _staying_ of his own accord because he wants—because he wants to be close to Flip, he wants to stay here, he wants to _stay—_

Gabe whines underneath him, arches his back, fingers going to his own nipples briefly before he reaches forward, fingertips just barely able to touch Flip.

“I—” Flip says—and then he bites down on that thought before it goes anywhere, slides his hand down Gabe’s thigh and cradles Gabe’s balls in his hand.

Flip comes just like that, all over Gabe’s cock and his stomach, exhaling all the tension out of his body and through his cock, his vision eclipsed for a moment before everything rushes back in.

There’s a pool of come gathering in Gabe’s bellybutton. “Fucking hell,” Flip mutters.

“You’re telling me,” Gabe breathes. “You always come that much?”

“Fuck if I know,” Flip says, feeling a little like he’s been kicked in the solar plexus. He wipes his hand on his own thigh, shifts Gabe over to his side and lies down behind him, cradling Gabe’s body close so that he doesn’t fall off the couch. His other hand fondles Gabe’s balls because he can, because Gabe hasn’t told him to stop yet, because he’s fascinated by the way they feel in his hand. “Usually do this in the shower. Never really pay attention.”

Gabe chuckles, low in his throat. “I’ll think of that every time I use your shower now. Or any shower.”

“Please,” Flip says, and he leans over, kisses Gabe on the lips. “Mmm.”

“Oh,” Gabe says softly. He kisses back, hand coming up to stroke Flip’s hair. “That’s nice.”

_You’re nice_ , Flip thinks, and then he swallows that back too. “Let me clean you up,” he offers, reaching for the closest towel.

“Thank you,” Gabe says. He raises his eyebrows. “Speaking of that, you want to watch me shower?”

“Yeah,” Flip says. “I’d like that a lot.” He hesitates. “Want a minute, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Just wanna hold you,” Flip mutters into the back of Gabe’s neck, and he figures this is it, that Gabriel will laugh and pull away, stand up and get moving because that’s the kind of person he is—except Gabe does nothing of the sort, just murmurs something too low for Flip to hear, and then presses his naked body back against Flip’s.

Lets Flip embrace him.

Flip breathes him in. Waits for Gabe to pull away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Notes:** the handcuffs are back; Gabe's initiative this time | Gabe calls Flip a monster, re: his cock; it's meant affectionately | rather a lot of come; not described in detail
> 
> Also, it's a series now because there's going to be one other chaptered installment (Gabe's POV), and possibly some one-shots if the mood strikes me. (I'm wearing my clown mask, don't worry about it. :'D)
> 
> There's a blog post for this chapter [over on my blog](https://heyktula.wordpress.com/2020/02/21/an-avenue-by-any-other-name-chapter-six/). It talks a bit about the title, about denial, domesticity, and Gabe vs Gabriel.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), where I tweet about kylux, adjacents, and the Terror. Fauxtalian is [on twitter](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1) with her wonderful art! And [Deadsy](https://twitter.com/deadsy_art), who does my edits, is also over there!


	7. Settle Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel keeps leaving--but he keeps coming back, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we're very nearly at the end for this one.
> 
> Content notes are at the end.

“‘Y’alright?”

“What time is it there?”

“Eight pm, same as it is for you. Only fuckin’ thing Salt Lake City has goin’ for it, hate it here.”

“’M sorry you had to go.”

“…I’m sorry too, Flip.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make me say it again. Hey, listen, what’re you wearing?”

* * *

“Hey, it’s Flip Zimmerman.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m looking for Gabriel O’Malley.”

“Hey—Claire! You seen O’Malley lately? Ask Ruby, would you? Yeah? Alright—Mr. Zimmerman, sorry. Hasn’t been in New York for the last week or two. Want me to leave him a message?”

“Nah, just…tell him I called if he shows up.”

“Sure thing.”

* * *

“Heard you were looking for me.”

“Gabe…it’s good to hear your voice.”

“Don’t get sentimental on me, Zimmerman.”

“…alright.”

“Just wanted to tell you I’m still alive.”

“Was that in doubt?”

“…”

“Gabe. Are you alright?”

“Mmm.”

“You don’t sound so hot.”

“I’m fine.”

“You didn’t get shot or something, did you? You’d tell me if you got shot, right?”

“...shoulda stayed longer.”

“You had—”

“I know what I had. Have. Whatever.”

“Did you get—”

“I’m not fuckin’ shot, Flip, Christ. I’m just...I…”

“Stay on the line a sec.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Gonna put the phone down next to the kid, let you listen to him breathe. It’ll help. I promise.”

“…guess it can’t hurt.”

* * *

Flip goes out on the balcony for a smoke after supper, keeps the glass door open so that he can watch Gabe and Stensland playing on the floor of the kitchen. It’s been weeks since he’d last seen Gabe, but his car had been parked on Flip’s street when Flip’d come home from work, and there’d already been food on the stove and Gabe and Stens playing on the floor when Flip had arrived. He doesn’t know why it’s so fucking hard to breathe when Gabe is around—he’s watched Carol do this exact kind of stuff with Stensland before, it’s just simple playing. Rolling a ball toward Stensland, retrieving the ball when Stensland accidentally hits it with his foot and it rolls off in an odd direction, crawling around on the floor with him. Flip watches all this stuff with Carol, all the time, and it doesn’t do—this to him.

(Gabe sounds perfectly fine now, looked perfectly fine when Flip came home, but Flip can’t get that last phone call out of his head, the ragged way Gabe was breathing, the sudden way Gabe had hung up the phone. He should have called Gabe back, but he couldn’t make himself dial more than a couple numbers before letting the dial unwind itself.)

But right now, watching Gabe and Stensland play together, the easy way Gabe smiles at him and Stensland smiles back? His chest is caved in, his heart is full, and he’s just going to stand out here on the balcony, smoke this cigarette down to nothing, maybe smoke another one afterwards.

Gabe hasn’t had much time with Stensland.

He deserves to have this, at least.

Gabe won’t stay long, like usual—but at least Flip can give him more time.

* * *

The bedroom door creaks as Gabe closes it behind him, and he winces, brushes his hair back from his face with his free hand. He has clothes draped over his other arm, a now-familiar set of dark blue pants and a matching shirt.

“He settle alright?” Flip asks softly. He’s got the tv on, but the volume turned down low just for the background noise, it’s nothing he’s really paying attention to.

Gabe nods, something passing across his face that Flip doesn't recognize, a feeling he can’t identify yet. “I—” he starts—and then he stops.

“I know,” Flip says, to save Gabe the trouble of stumbling through it. “You’re going.” He nods toward the clothes draped across Gabe’s arm. “Got your tight pants.”

Gabe blinks at him, startled for a moment before he smirks. “You think my pants are tight?”

“They are indisputably tight, yes.” They’re also outdated, but Flip isn’t about to tell Gabe that for fear that Gabe will stop wearing them, because now that he knows he can look—he wants to look, wants to look all the time. He shifts on the couch a bit, spreads his legs.

Gabe shakes his head, takes a couple steps forward and sets his clothes down on top of the tv before tugging at his tshirt and pulling it over his head. “You know,” he says, voice muffled as the shirt comes off, “I feel, uh. Well. I haven’t been around much lately. Haven’t been able to send much. I’m not…being that supportive.”

“We have what we need,” Flip says softly, distracted by Gabe’s nipples, the glint of his necklace in the light, the quick way he’s undoing his jeans and shoving them down his thighs. “There’s not a lot of fabric on those underwear,” he says, trying to keep his voice casual—but suddenly glad that he’d spread his legs earlier.

“Tight pants,” Gabe says, matter-of-factly. “I start wearing those loose boxers like you do, they’d wrinkle underneath. Wrecks the lines, nobody will respect me as a—as anything if they can see my underwear right through my pants.”

“Navy looks good on you,” Flip agrees, still tracing the lines of Gabe’s underwear with his eyes, the tiny inch-width of fabric snug across Gabe’s hips, the pouch keeping everything else contained.

“I’ll keep in mind you like it,” Gabe says, bringing his foot up to strip off first one sock, and then the other before replacing the white socks with thinner, dark socks, also in navy. He darts a look over to Flip as he finishes tugging the second sock on. “You got any special requests for underwear?”

Flip blinks at him, shakes his head. It’s not that he doesn’t, it’s more like he’s never considered the various options. “I like those,” he says, finally.

“I’ll be sure to toss more sets in my bag for next time,” Gabe says, like he and Flip are discussing the weather, not anything more intimate than that. He reaches for his pants next, tugs those on carefully, reaching down to adjust his cock once he’s got them pulled up, but leaving the zipper and button undone. Then he pulls on a fresh white undershirt, and puts on his button-up, leaving it open. He makes eye contact with Flip, and then swaggers over, his hips swinging gently and a smirk playing about the corners of his mouth, like he knows damn well Flip’s cock is thickening just from watching him.

Flip’s legs are spread, and Gabe waltzes right in between them, stands close enough that Flip’s thighs are touching Gabe’s calves.

“Well?” Gabe asks, voice low, as he tilts his hips toward Flip. “Zip me up. I’ve gotta look put together for this, and who better to ask than you, huh?”

Flip scoffs, but leans over anyway, runs his fingertips over Gabe’s underwear, carefully placing his fingers between the underwear and the fly of Gabe’s pants so that if he snags anything, it’s only going to be his own fingers. There’s a hint of orange pubic hair showing on the left side of Gabe’s underwear, and it’s fucking fascinating, bright against the navy blue, and Flip wants to undress him all over again, lay Gabe naked out on—on a bed, if he’s going to be honest about it, lay him out on a bed sometime when they have all the time in the world, and as many sets of handcuffs as Gabe wants, absolutely everything that Gabe wants, he’ll rehearse anything he needs to just so he can do it well—

“There you go,” Flip says, fastening the button, and patting Gabe’s crotch gently. Before Gabe can move away, he starts on the buttons of the shirt. “I like this too...are these cats?”

Gabe doesn’t answer, and when Flip looks up, he’s startled both by the faint blush on Gabe’s cheeks, and the softness in his eyes. Gabe just reaches down and rubs his thumb across Flip’s jaw, and then into his facial hair. “Yeah,” Gabe says, finally. Long after the question has ceased to matter. “Cats.”

* * *

When Flip wakes up, it’s to the grogginess that comes with having significantly overslept. The clock reads ten in the morning, and there’s an empty spot in the bed where Stensland usually is. He’s mentally going through a checklist of next steps when he hears a low murmur of voices from the kitchen, relaxes slightly. Gabe sure as fuck hadn’t been here last night—but it sounds as though he’s here now.

Flip gets out of bed, puts yesterday’s flannel shirt on, and heads out into the apartment in his boxers.

“You should be very proud of yourself,” Gabe says, voice just as even as it always is. He’s got Stensland on a towel on the kitchen table, and a wet washcloth in his hand.

“Ba,” Stensland declares.

“Yes, exactly,” Gabe says, deftly cleaning Stensland up. “You smell terrible. You’re lucky it was me hanging out with you this morning. Got a stronger stomach than—”

“Morning,” Flip says, voice rough. “I appreciate the extra sleep.” He swallows. “Didn’t know you were back. How long?”

Gabe looks up at him, corner of his mouth quirking into that expression that passes for Gabe’s version of a smile. “A bit. Good morning. I made bagels.”

Flip blinks at him. Gabe didn’t answer the question, not quite—but, then, it’s none of Flip’s business, really, is it. It’s not like they’re… “Yeah,” he says, finally. “I’ll have one of those bagels.” He tentatively reaches for Gabe’s hip when he walks past, and is pleased when Gabe leans into Flip’s fingers.

The bagel is still warm from the oven, and tastes delicious. Flip eats it in silence, leaning back against the counter and watching Gabe get Stensland dressed again.

“I’m handing you over,” Gabe says. “Don’t squawk.” He picks Stensland up, presses his lips against Stensland’s cheek, and then hands him to Flip.

Stensland is as he always is—a comforting weight in Flip’s arms, and a slightly wet spot on Flip’s shoulder. Stensland reaches for Flip’s hair, grabs a fistful of it. “Ba,” he declares. “Ba, ba, ba.”

“Look at you,” Flip murmurs, holding Stens with one hand and keeping his bagel out of reach with the other. “These are damn good bagels.”

Gabe looks over his shoulder from where he’s washing his hands at the sink. “Yeah?” He’s wearing loose sweatpants that are oddly flattering on him. There’s a dusting of white flour on the front of his left thigh when he turns.

“More meetings today?” Flip asks, instead of the question he actually wants to ask, which is—why did you come back? Where did you go, and why are you back here? How long are you staying?

(Can I keep you?)

Gabe flashes that loose smile he has when he’s being shifty about something, the one that doesn’t reach his eyes and isn’t real. “Due back in Utah again beginning of next week. Weather looks bad over the mountains. Thinking about flying instead. You know.”

“Right,” Flip says. “Crime.” He finishes the last bite of bagel, shifts Stensland over to his other hip, lets the kid grab at his hair.

The expression that flickers across Gabe’s face looks…hurt, and Flip immediately wants to take back what he said. “If you’re busy,” Gabe says, “I can just—”

“I’m not,” Flip says immediately. “I mean. There were some errands I could run—”

“Perfect,” Gabe says, “I’ll stick around then, keep an eye on the kid for you. Grab some groceries when you’re out, I’ll make you a list.”

— _that you could run with me_ , Flip swallows back, because of course Gabe wasn’t going to do that. And that’s fine, Flip can purchase a crib on his own...it’s about time that Stensland has his own place to sleep, and Flip wanting to invite Gabe into his bed is...neither here nor there, really. Maybe he’ll just pick up another blanket for the couch while he’s out, just in case Gabe doesn’t want to be invited. It’s safer not to make any assumptions.

“Yeah,” Flip says, pushing all those problems away, somewhere where he’s not going to see them or think about them at all. “Nothin’ complicated, though, we don’t do fancy food out here like you do out east.”

“I assume there’s vegetables for sale,” Gabe drawls. He’s already got a pen and paper in hand, and Flip just—forces himself to look away from Gabe, and the things that Flip wants to ask him, forces himself to just focus on Stensland, and the words the poor kid is trying to say but can’t quite enunciate.

There’s a sharp beeping noise. Flip turns—he didn’t used to own a kitchen timer, but there’s one there now, beeping insistently. He acts instinctively, and it’s like a well-oiled machine—he hands Stensland over into Gabe’s already extended hands, grabs the oven mitt on the counter and opens the oven, takes out two trays of homemade teething biscuits.

No, not a machine.

Like a partnered dance.

(One tray of biscuits is shaped like palm trees, the other flamingos, and it’s some of the cleanest knife work that Flip has ever seen.)

* * *

Flip drives all the way over to the Toys ‘r Us before he gets frustrated with the entire thing, turns around, and heads back to the closest grocery store. Spends an hour and a half walking around with a cart, slowly filling it up with every item that Gabe has requested on his too-long list.

After he’s filled his vehicle with groceries, he drives back to the Toys R Us, buys the damn crib anyways.

It’s none of his business where Gabe sleeps. He’s not about to deprive poor Stensland of a crib just because he’s frustrated about Gabe.

* * *

Flip is still feeling a bit out of sorts when he gets back to the apartment, and deals with it the best way he knows how—by working. He hauls the groceries in, puts everything away according to Gabe’s lazily drawled instructions, and then retreats to the living room with the unassembled crib, coaxes Stensland to come along with him so Gabe can do what he needs to do in the kitchen in relative peace.

“You should hand me the screws,” Flip suggests softly.

Stensland grins at him, the plastic bag clenched victoriously in his little fist.

“Yeah,” Flip says. “Those ones. Over here?” He holds out his hand, waits to see if Stensland lets the bag go—which he does, but not while his hand is anywhere near Flip’s.

Flip shakes his head, smiles at Stensland as he leans over and retrieves the little bag, getting it before Stensland picks it back up again and tries to put it into his mouth.

“Ba!”

“Of course it’s for you,” Flip says. He rips open the bag, picks a screw out of it, and starts fastening the rails of the crib to the base. “Can’t share my bed all the time, little buddy. Plus, you might like not having to wake up every time I can’t sleep, it’ll be dead quiet in the living room.”

“I’m pretty sure I snore,” Gabe says from the kitchen. “Worse when I’m drinking, but I’m told I do it sober too.”

“Nobody said you had to sleep in the living room,” Flip says.

Silence.

Flip looks up at Gabe. He looks a little more serious than usual, his arms crossed over his chest, gold chain of his necklace just as prominent as it always is when Gabe’s stripped down to just his undershirt.

Flip tilts his head, turns the screwdriver in his hands. “You staying, then?”

“Food’s ready,” Gabe says, and he doesn’t answer the question.

(Flip doesn’t ask where Gabe will be sleeping if he does stay. He didn’t get an answer to the easier question. He’s not gonna poke at the harder one.)

* * *

Flip takes Stensland out for a walk after supper, Gabe’s steak and potatoes sitting warmly in his stomach, and the strawberry Jello still under Stensland’s little fingernails where he’ll have to scrub it out in the bath. He wishes Gabe had come with them, but he’d made himself busy cleaning up after supper, and Flip is half-convinced it’s so that Gabe has the space to leave—but he won’t think about that now, right now it’s just him and Stensland, with Stensland up on his shoulders making excited noises every time anything moves. By the time they take a loop around the park and come back to the apartment, Stensland’s eyes are fluttering, and it doesn’t take long to bathe him, change his diaper, give him one last bottle, and then settle him down into his brand new crib, which they’ve tucked into the corner of the living room. It’s awkward putting him to sleep in the crib—Flip’s normal procedure is just to lie there with Stensland on his chest until Stensland goes to sleep, and then shift him off onto the mattress proper—but this time, he just ends up awkwardly hunched over the crib with his hand splayed across Stensland’s chest, listening to the kid’s breathing slow until he’s finally out cold, breathing deep and regular, both hands up above his head

It feels like there’s more he should be doing, but there...really isn’t. Stensland is asleep, he’s been fed, and when Flip turns off the lamp, it’s with the confidence that everything is done that needs to be done.

He glances over at his closed bathroom door, to the light underneath it.

Well, there’s still that.

Flip pads into the dim light of the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt while he tries to think. He can’t, really, though. Not when he can hear Gabe moving around inside the bathroom.

(He’d thought Gabe would have left, but Gabe hasn’t left. He’s been in the bathroom long enough that maybe he _won’t_ leave, maybe he’s settling in for the night. Or maybe he isn’t. Either way, it’s none of Flip’s business.)

He tries to tell himself that whatever happens will be fine, because he knows it will be. They can do the same things they’ve done already. Or they can do something different. Or they can both fall asleep. There are extra blankets in the living room, still, because Flip uses them for Stensland sometimes, when they’re playing on the floor and he’s trying to protect his rug. It’s probably better to just assume that they’ll sleep—Gabe hasn’t looked that well-rested lately, and Flip wants—

“Hey,” Gabe says softly from behind him.

Flip turns, and his fingers immediately fumble on his buttons.

Gabe is standing there, backlit from the bathroom light, one of Flip’s towels wrapped loosely around his waist, his hair wet and slicked back out of the way.

“You look amazing,” Flip says.

Gabe goes pink, eyes sliding off to the side. “Sorry it took so long,” he says to the doorframe.

Flip shrugs, looks down at his own hands and tries to force his fingers to start working again. The buttons feel incredibly tiny, his fingers much too large to be able to function. He wants everything at once—to press Gabe up against the wall, to lay him out on the bed and slick up his fingers, to kiss him deeply, to hold Gabe against his chest—and he also wants this, right now, standing mere feet apart from each other, with Gabe nearly naked, and Flip on his way there. “Don’t give a fuck how long it takes you to shower.”

Gabe inhales—and then exhales slowly, looking back at Flip. He deliberately puts his hand on the place where the towel is tucked and held secure around his waist. “You need some help with your buttons?”

“You want some help with that towel?”

The corner of Gabe’s mouth twitches, and he flicks his fingers. The towel falls to the floor. “Nope. You want some help with that shirt?”

Flip tugs at it, hard, hears the buttons fall to the floor somewhere. He’ll have to spend most of tomorrow morning looking for them so that Stensland doesn’t find them first and try to eat them—but that’s fine, that’s totally fine, because Gabe is watching him intently as Flip shrugs the shirt off, lets it drop, and then pulls his undershirt off afterwards.

“Fuck, that’s good,” Gabe breathes. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his cock is hanging between his legs, foreskin covering the head. The orange-red of his pubic hair looks...different somehow, tonight. Neater around the edges. Flip wants to stroke the damp curls with his fingertips, run his thumb along the bare skin right at the crease of Gabe’s thigh.

Fip’s hands go instinctively to his belt, and then, once that’s undone, to the button of his jeans—and he hesitates. “This okay?”

“More than okay,” Gabe says, eyes wandering over Flip’s body. His cock is starting to thicken between his legs, and he doesn’t look self-conscious about it at all, just keeps watching Flip’s hands.

Flip unbuttons his pants, shifts his belt out of the way. “What did you want to do tonight?”

“Whatever you want,” Gabe says. His voice is casual, but the colour darkening his cheeks and going down into his chest says otherwise. His cock is harder, now, starting to stand out away from his body, and his nipples, framed by his crossed arms, are visibly tightened. “We’ll do this at your pace...it’s murdering me not to kneel for you right now, though. Want you to appreciate that.”

“Let’s not talk about—wait, what?”

“It’s murdering me,” Gabe repeats, head tilted and one eyebrow raised just slightly, “not to kneel for you right now, Flip Zimmerman.”

Flip’s chest clenches, and he takes a breath. “You want…?”

“To be on my knees basically the minute I see you,” Gabe says. “Ready for that cock in my mouth. I’d bury my face in your jeans just to be able to be close to you.” He shakes his head a little, stops looking at Flip’s crotch and shifts his gaze upward, to Flip’s eyes. “I know I’m a mess,” he says, voice quiet and steady.

“...not a mess,” Flip manages. “I think you’re—”

“Don’t do that,” Gabe warns. “Not when we’re about to fuck.”

Flip’s face goes hot. “We fuckin’ now?”

“Depends,” Gabe says. “You gonna get your pants off?”

Flip puts his hands back on his pants, hesitates. “I want to be able to see this.”

“So we’ll keep the bathroom light on,” Gabe says. “Unless you want the overheads on.”

“You ain’t seen me in good light before,” Flip continues steadily.

“And I’d dearly love to now.” Gabe’s eyes flick down Flip’s body before coming back up to his face. “You want to let me?”

Flip takes a page out of Gabe’s book, avoids the question entirely. “Just—stay there a minute.”

Gabe nods, leans against the doorframe. The fact that he’s still stark-naked makes this easier. It shouldn’t, necessarily, but it does.

Flip glances down at his pants, drags the zipper down. The thought crosses his mind, briefly, that he could try to be appealing about the entire thing—but he knows he doesn’t have Gabe’s charisma, and anyway, this isn’t about being appealing. This is just about—letting Gabe look, so that afterwards, Flip can focus on everything else that he wants to do. He exhales, sharply, and then pushes his jeans and boxers down his thighs at the same time, stands there with his cock exposed. Lets Gabe actually look at him without hustling him to close his eyes, or put Flip’s dick in his mouth, or anything like that, and maintains eye contact the entire time, even though Gabe isn’t looking him in the eyes.

(Gabe is staring at his cock.)

Gabe swallows, visibly. “Alright,” he says, his voice strained. “Whew. Jesus.” He shuts his eyes a moment. “I know you’re self-conscious and the polite thing to do is not to stare, but _jesus_ , Zimmerman, that fucking cock of yours.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m a weak man.”

Flip breathes steadily, evenly. Reaches down and runs his fingertips along his thickening cock, puts his hands back at his sides. “Yeah?”

“I’m lookin’ again.” Gabe opens his eyes, and his face immediately goes red. “ _Fuck_.” He lowers himself to the carpet until he’s kneeling just at the entrance to Flip’s bedroom, still completely fixated on Flip’s cock. His own is standing up between his thighs, foreskin pulling back from the head. “Not necessarily today, mind, but I’d like to watch you jack that massive thing off on my face. Cuff my hands behind my back so I can’t move, stand just far enough away that I can’t get to you, and then just...yeah.” Gabe’s moved his hands behind his back while he’s talking, is keeping them there like he doesn’t consciously realize he’s doing it. “Had to have touched yourself a lot over the years, bet you know exactly what you like.”

Flip’s breathing heavily, and it’s the kind of thing he feels he should be trying to control, but he’s also realizing that it doesn’t matter. Not when it’s just him and Gabe. “Can’t come on your face if I’m standing all the way over here,” he says roughly.

“I have no self-control with you,” Gabe says in a raw whisper. “Tell me to keep my hands behind my back.”

“Why?”

Gabe whines, bites his lip. Looks up at Flip, and Flip wants to manhandle him right into the carpet, pin him down there with his legs and grind on him, see if Gabe’s legs will flex up by his ears while Flip drives into him.

“Bed,” Flip says shortly. “Not doing this on the carpet.”

“Right,” Gabe says, but he doesn’t move, just spreads his knees a little, which of course makes Flip look at his cock. The foreskin has fully pulled back, now, and there’s precome at the head of it, and Flip wants to fuck Gabe so badly that he wonders, briefly, if it’s actually possible to die of such a thing.

“Gabriel,” he warns.

Gabe grins at him impishly, and sticks out his hand. Flip reaches out his own automatically, tugs and pulls Gabe’s naked body right into his own, and Gabe is kissing him, pressing his tongue into Flip’s mouth, rutting his hard cock against Flip’s, walking them back toward the bed. Gabe is _everywhere_ , all arms and legs and wandering hands, and when Flip’s legs hit the bed, he sits down heavily on the mattress, pulls Gabe into his lap and gets a handful of Gabe’s still-damp hair in his fist.

Gabe shudders on his lap. “Can’t help myself,” he says into Flip’s neck, rocking his hips against Flip’s. “Can’t resist you.”

“Could,” Flip disagrees—but it doesn’t matter, because right now the only important thing to do is to tug Gabe’s head back with the hand that’s wound in his hair so that Flip can get his mouth on Gabe’s neck, to drag the fingertips of his other hand down Gabe’s back and down the crack of Gabe’s—

Flip leans back, breathing heavily. “Hold up a sec.”

Gabe makes a pleased sound, leans back from him. His eyes are blown black, and his cheeks are pink. “Yeah?”

“Let’s talk about your…” He hesitates, unsure how to phrase it, and finally just settles on the concrete detail he’s just observed with his other hand. “You’re wet.”

“Guilty as charged,” Gabe says, looking smug about it.

“You’re amazing,” Flip says. “So amazing, you’re just…”

Gabe looks at Flip through half-lidded eyes. “Yeah?”

Flip stops idly rocking his hips up against Gabe’s, tugs Gabe in closer. “Yeah.”

“Consider, though,” Gabe says, his words spilling over each other. “Next time, maybe I’ll come in here absolutely bone dry, let you open me up with your—fingers, and you can—you can do what you want with me. I’ll be yours. Again. Still. Al—yeah.”

Flip exhales, moves both his hands down to Gabe’s hips just so he can pull Gabe in a bit closer to him, starting rocking against him again. His own hard cock is pinned underneath Gabe’s weight, and now that he knows what’s between Gabe’s legs, he imagines he can feel the lube, just a bit, the slickness in the crack of Gabe’s ass. Wonders if he could slide his cock there, once he figures out the angle. “Say I fuck you,” Flip suggests. “My dick in your ass.”

“That’s typically how it’s done,” Gabe agrees, his breath warm on Flip’s neck.

“I’ll feel bad if I nut instantly—”

“Oh god,” Gabe groans, “I won’t in the slightest, I wish you’d just do it. I’ll lie back on the bed and fingerfuck myself with it after—”

“For fuck’s sake,” Flip breathes, feeling his balls tighten and his cock throb almost painfully. “The mouth on you...can I put my fingers in you now?”

“Please,” Gabe whines. “Left the lube on the bedside table, you’ll have to—”

“Spit,” Flip says, voice dark. He holds out his hand.

Gabe leans forward, up on his knees so that his ass is away from Flip’s cock, and sucks Flip’s two fingers into his mouth. His mouth is wet, and his tongue is wicked, moving all over the place. His eyes are half-shut, his face relaxed, and Flip wants this all the damn time, every single day of every single week, just Gabriel O’Malley in his bed, mouth on Flip’s body in whatever capacity Gabe wants, he’d do anything to just be able to keep this—

Gabe pulls his mouth off Flip’s fingers with a wet smack, follows that up by spitting across them. “Wet enough for you?” he asks roughly.

All the words that come to Flip’s mind are locker room talk, and Gabe deserves more than that, so he curls forward and starts kissing Gabe, brings his wet hand down to his own crotch, where he shifts his hard cock so it’s up against his stomach, and then slides his fingers down Gabe’s balls to the crack of Gabe’s ass.

(It’s wet, here. Slick and damp. Flip wants to kiss him here too, because he’s sure Gabe would be just as kissable here as he is on his lips. Maybe later. Once he’s sure Gabe won’t be turned off by it.)

Flip explores Gabe’s crack until he feels the furl of his asshole underneath the pads of his fingertips, and then slowly presses his spit-wet fingers inside. Just one, at first, but Gabe opens easily for him, and Flip pulls out before he’s even halfway in just so that he can press both fingers in at once.

Gabe exhales, a long drawn-out _fuck_ whispered against Flip’s hair. “No need to treat me careful,” he whispers softly. “Go whatever speed you like now, I’m ready for you.”

“The fuck were you doing in our shower?” Flip asks.

“Fingering myself,” Gabe says immediately, and then his breath catches, knees tightening around Flip’s thighs as Flip presses his fingers in just a little deeper. “Four fingers—right up my own ass—wait, _our_ shower?”

“Yeah,” Flip breathes, and he tugs Gabe’s naked body closer to his so he can rock against Gabe’s stomach while he fucks Gabe with his fingers. “Our shower.”

“Fuckin’ christ,” Gabe breathes. “You’d better give me another finger, Flip.”

“Wanna give you my dick,” Flip mutters.

Gabe makes an incoherent noise, and then his hands are in Flip’s hair, and his mouth is on Flip’s. “Please,” he breathes, in between kisses. “Please give me your dick, please fuck me, please, Flip—”

“Don’t know what I’m doing,” Flip manages. He reaches up and wraps his arm around Gabe’s shoulders, and Gabe crowds against him, pushing him back on the bed and continuing to kiss him.

“D’ya wan’ me to sit on your cock,” Gabe asks. His eyes are bright and his face is flushed and his voice is a brilliant whisper, and Flip?

Flip fucking loves him.

It doesn’t matter if he’s here or he’s gone.

Flip loves him.

He nods. Swallows. “Sit on my cock, Gabe,” he rasps.

“Watch me,” Gabe demands. He kneels on the bed, his own cock hard and pink and pointing upward, with the foreskin pulled back and the head of it wet. He drags his hand down Flip’s chest, curls it loosely around the base of his cock. “Lube’s on the bedside table. Pass it over.” Gabe ducks his head, pants a little, tightening his hand on Flip’s cock for a moment before slowly letting go. “Should be walkin’ you through better. But I just want this in me right now, I’ve been thinking about it for—ages, can you just—yes, thank you.” He squirts some of the lube into his hand, reaches down, and runs his hand along Flip’s dick.

Flip winces. ‘’S fucking cold.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Gabe says. “Promise I’m warm inside.” He squirts more lube in his hand, tosses the lube aside and reaches between his legs. “Shove up on the bed a ways.”

Flip sits up, holds Gabe around his waist, and moves both of them a bit further up on the bed, lies back down so that his head is on the pillow. Gabe is still straddling him, and he’s fucking beautiful, only Flip doesn’t know how to tell him without sounding like a fucking idiot. He tries anyways, though. Clears his throat. “Gabe…”

Gabe looks over at him through half-lidded eyes. “Yeah?”

“I can’t…think…when you’re around.”

“Oh,” Gabe says, pleased. He strokes Flip’s cock with his thumb. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“No, I mean it,” Flip says. He thrusts his cock up harder into Gabe’s hand. “You look...fuck, I’m not any good at this.”

“It’s alright,” Gabe says. “It’ll be real easy, just hold still for me.” He tips Flip’s cock upwards, shifts up on his knees so that he’s positioned directly over it, and then bites his lip, closes his eyes, and lowers himself down.

“No, I—oh, holy _fuck_ , Gabe.”

It’s indescribable, the feeling as Gabe lowers himself onto Flip’s cock. Gabe’s ass is slick, and there’s a moment of pressure when Flip’s cock presses up against it, the barest moment of resistance, and then everything just _gives_ and Gabe is sliding down his shaft, and Flip is...Flip is _inside Gabe_ , and it’s hot and tight and slick and so intimate that Flip feels like he should close his eyes—but Gabe’s are already closed, and so Flip keeps his open, and just—watches his cock disappear inside Gabe, watches the quick play of expressions on Gabe’s face, the way he swipes his red hair back from his face, bites down harder on his lip. There’s a point where he stops moving, just when the last inch or so of Flip’s cock is still exposed, and if Flip had his shit together, he’d say something—tell Gabe that it’s okay, this is far enough in, that Flip can support him, hold him up, this is already more than Flip ever expected he was going to get, it would be okay to pull back if Gabe needs to pull back—and then Gabe exhales hard, lowers himself the rest of the way down, and squeezes Flip with his thighs.

“Alright?” he asks.

“Fuck me,” Flip breathes. “Holy shit. You’re...” He swallows, hovers his hands over Gabe’s hips. Wants to touch him. Feels like if he does, it might break the spell between them.

Gabe smirks at him. “I want to move, more than anything,” he says, voice real soft. “Can you hang in there for me if I do, or do you just need to breathe here for a minute?”

“You can—” Flip starts, and then he reconsiders, because even just Gabe breathing is causing him to tighten around Flip’s cock. “Maybe...a minute. Balls are pulled right tight, I don’t want—”

“It’s alright,” Gabe says calmly. “I came before I even got all the way in my first time, and I don’t have nearly as far in to go as you do—you’re doing fine.”

Flip exhales. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Here,” Gabe says, voice casual. “I put my cigarettes on your bedside table there, why don’t you light me one and pass it over?”

Flip nods, happy to have something to focus on that isn’t how fucking _tight_ Gabe is, and how good he feels, and how fucking close Flip is to coming—and his fingers are clumsy as he taps a cigarette out of the package, but the ritual of it, of lighting the cigarette and inhaling himself before handing it to Gabe, the simple pleasure of watching Gabe inhale and his face relax...that helps Flip get a handle on himself. “How about you, Gabe?”

Gabe exhales twin plumes of smoke from his nose, gazes down at Flip. “Hmm?”

Gabe’s cock has gone soft. Flip reaches for it, strokes hesitantly with his fingers. “Am I...hurting you?”

“God no,” Gabe breathes. “I’m trying to distract myself to give you a minute, and that’s an unfortunate side effect...I’ll perk up once we get going again here.”

“Right,” Flip says. Hesitates. “I was thinking…”

“Yeah?”

“That time we were like this—the first time you let me watch you touch yourself,” Flip says. “You were on top of me—and I’d grabbed your hips—”

“Please, yes, fuck me like that,” Gabe rasps. “And once you start…”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t bother stopping,” Gabe says. He flashes a grin at Flip. “I’ll get myself off afterwards, right in front of you, exactly as you want—only, for god’s sake, fuck me, Flip.”

“Right,” Flip says. He reaches for Gabe’s hips, squeezes him tight. It’s different, when Gabe’s naked. Better. He tugs Gabe toward him, once, tentatively—and Gabe moans, squeezes around him, and it sends a wave of full-body pleasure through Flip. He gasps, tugs Gabe down and against him again. “Holy fuck, this is good. You’ll say—stop, if you—if you need it?”

“Yeah,” Gabe says. “I’ll say stop if I need it, fuck, you’re big—come on, Flip. Show me what you’ve got.”

Flip nods. Tightens his grip on Gabe. “I’m gonna move now.”

“Get on with it, Zimmerman,” Gabe teases, and then he puts the cigarette back in his mouth, inhales casually.

Flip pulls Gabe into him again, tipping his hips a little this time, and the simple shift makes it so much better that Flip does it again, immediately. And then again.

And again.

“Oh _christ_ ,” Gabe moans above him, and Flip curls his arm around Gabe’s back, sits up enough so that he can bury his face in Gabe’s shoulder. Plucks the cigarette from Gabe’s fingers and drops it in the empty glass on the bedside table, braces one of his feet against the bed and keeps fucking up into Gabe’s ass. Gabe smells amazing, like Flip’s soap, and his ass is so tight on Flip’s cock that Flip can hardly handle it—but that’s not what pushes him over.

It’s knowing that Gabe wants this.

It’s knowing that Gabe wants _him_.

They don’t just get this. It’s not just tonight. It’s the next time Gabe comes back, and the time after that, and the time after that. Flip has his face buried in Gabe’s neck, and Gabe is panting into his ear, gasping for breath and moaning and Flip sneaks one of his hands between their bodies because he can feel Gabe’s hard cock against his stomach, and he wants to feel it in his palm, wants to stroke Gabe with his fingers. He wraps his hand around Gabe’s cock and tugs at him, and Gabe whimpers, clenches, and that’s it—Flip is coming inside him, cock spasming over and over again as he groans into Gabe’s neck, and he’s still fucking coming, somehow, and he can’t get his breath, just keeps gasping and—

“Hey, hey,” Gabe says softly. His hand is on Flip’s back, rubbing in circles. “It’s okay, it’s okay—here, slide out of me here—”

“Not yet,” Flip manages, and his voice sounds rough, raw, broken. He circles his arm around Gabe. “Gonna shift you to your back?”

“Alright, but you’ll probably—oh, christ, how didn’t you just slip out—”

“Dunno,” Flip murmurs, gently setting Gabe down on his back, covering Gabe’s body with his own. Gabe is hot underneath him. Alive. Flip ruts against Gabe again—his cock is softening, but he’s still inside Gabe’s ass, and he thinks he can maybe just stay in there a couple minutes more, fuck a little longer before his cock is too soft for it. “Want you to come for me.”

Gabe whines, pants. Flip tightens his grip on Gabe’s cock, strokes him a little faster. Keeps grinding his hips up against Gabe, careful not to shift backward so his softening cock doesn’t slip out, because he’s doing something for Gabe, like this—he’s making Gabe happy.

He’s going to make Gabe come.

Flip lowers his head to Gabe’s ear. “Come on,” he growls, jerking Gabe off firm and steady. “Want you to come. Want you to come on my dick.”

Gabe gasps, exhales hard, back arching as he comes, covering Flip’s hand with it. His ass clenches hard enough that Flip’s cock slips out. They’re both breathing hard, bodies stuck to each other with sweat, lube, and body fluids. It’s a fucking mess.

Flip doesn’t think he’s ever been so happy.

“Fuck,” Flip breathes, lying down on his side and throwing his leg over Gabe’s body. His hand is covered in Gabe’s come, and he slowly traces circles in it on Gabe’s stomach. “You are so goddamn _good_ , Gabe.”

Gabe groans, puts his arm over his eyes. “You’re gonna be the death of me, Zimmerman.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen to you,” Flip breathes, and he leans in closer, presses his lips against Gabe’s ear. “Not now, not ever.” He drags his wet fingers down Gabe’s thigh, and then, tentatively, places them between Gabe’s legs. “Do you want this?”

“Yes,” Gabe says immediately. “All four fingers, please—”

Flip nods, does exactly as Gabe asks, feeling gently for that spot Gabe had told him about before, up toward Gabe’s stomach, slightly different texture—and he knows he’s got it when Gabe moans, turns his head to the side and bites down on Flip’s pillow. He’s shivering, a little bit, and when Flip shifts so that he can put his other hand on Gabe’s chest to ground him, he notices something.

“My hand’s shaking,” he says softly. “You’ve undone me, Gabriel.”

“Oh, fucking hell,” Gabe curses, writhing on the bed and pressing himself more firmly down on Flip’s fingers. “You figurin’ on makin’ me come again?”

“You figure I can?” Flip asks. He pulls out of Gabe, scoops up some of the pooled come from Gabe’s bellybutton, and presses all four fingers back inside him, pressing up against that spot and steadily rubbing.

“M-maybe,” Gabe says. He arches his back again, reaches out blindly until he’s grabbing Flip’s arms. His eyes are scrunched shut, his mouth is open. Flip can see right up his nose from this angle, and Gabe is still fucking gorgeous. “Usually once my cock is done, I’m done too, but—oh, fuck, I don’t think I can make it, Flip, I don’t think I can...you’ve wiped me out entirely, I don’t...oh, _god_ , that feels so good.”

“Little bit longer?” Flip asks.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Gabe whines. “Maybe?” Then his breath catches in his throat. “Maybe not.”

Flip nods, stops moving his fingers. He shuffles forward on the bed, kisses Gabe deeply as he pulls his fingers out, slow and steady, then presses his knuckles back against Gabe’s hole. “You’re sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“Might be walkin’ funny tomorrow,” Gabe says softly. “But you didn’t hurt me, no. You feeling alright?”

“I should be asking you that,” Flip says, voice rough.

“Wasn’t my virginity,” Gabe says, and his voice is just so goddamn gentle that Flip’s throat is thick over it. Gabe reaches up, and rubs at Flip’s cheek with his thumb. “You can shower first, if you want.”

“Wanna lie here a minute,” Flip says. “If you don’t mind.”

“Oh,” Gabe says, and his voice is…surprised, almost. “...please, that’d be lovely.”

Flip shifts closer. Gabe curls into him, wet and naked and entirely unselfconscious, his breathing immediately slowing as he tucks his head under Flip’s chin. As they’re lying there together, there’s a moment where Flip actually wonders if anybody has ever held Gabe afterwards.

He feels like if they had, maybe Gabe wouldn’t be clinging to him right now like he's drowning, and Flip is his only lifeline.

* * *

Flip’s just adjusting the final temperature on the bath when the door creaks open, and he looks up to see Gabe standing there naked, with bleary eyes and messed-up hair.

“Sorry,” Gabe says roughly. “Think I fell asleep...why you having a bath when your hair’s all wet?”

Flip’s face gets hot, and the words stop in his throat. He’s showered already, showered and washed his hair, had a weird breakout of feelings halfway through where he’d had to stop and just lean into the shower wall and breathe there for a minute, because he shouldn’t have this—he shouldn’t get to have this, he never _did_ anything for it, what right does he have to ask Gabe to stay in the first place? What right does he have to ask for any of this?

(It’s not about rights, or what either of them deserve. It is, Flip is slowly realizing, about what they want. About what they _have_.)

He clears his throat.

Gabe doesn’t say anything, just stands in the doorway looking soft and vulnerable and…sweet, somehow. Flip is only aware of a fraction of the things Gabe has done—and he assumes that there’s more that he doesn’t know about back in New York, things there that would outstrip anything Gabe’s ever done out here—but none of that matters.

“Thought you might want it,” he says, finally. “I showered already.”

“Oh,” Gabe says, voice cracking just a little. “Oh, I...that’s...thank you, Flip.” He stretches again, hands over his head.

Flip watches him, accidentally meets Gabe’s eyes—and instead of Gabe saying anything about it, Gabe just smiles, pads across the bathroom floor, and slips into the tub, sighing with relief as his body sinks into the hot water.

“It’s not too warm?”

“This is perfect,” Gabe says. “Exactly how I like it, how did you know?”

“You always steam up the bathroom when you shower,” Flip says. “I...notice that stuff.”

Gabe looks over at him, smiles. His teeth are visible, just barely, and he doesn’t duck his head to hide it. “I guess you do, don’t you. Would you mind, uh…?”

Flip looks at him, not understanding until Gabe reaches back, and ruffles his own hair, and then Flip gets it, all at once, kneels on the bathmat and reaches for his shampoo. The process of washing Gabe’s hair is—intimate, and sensual, and beautiful. Gabe sighs underneath him as Flip scratches at his scalp with his nails, his eyes closed in bliss that’s not unlike how he looks when Flip fucks him, and it just makes Flip fall for him that much harder.

(It’s like all the words in his lungs are crowding themselves on their way out of his mouth, like everything is getting caught in his throat.)

“Fuck, you’ve got good hands,” Gabe says softly. “Want ‘em all over my body.” He exhales softly. “Guess I can have that, huh?”

“Yeah,” Flip says. He cups his hands, pours water over the back of Gabe’s hair, and then brushes the stubborn suds with the tips of his fingers. Hesitates, and then reaches over to grab the plastic cup he uses for washing Stensland’s hair, fills it and continues to rinse the shampoo out for Gabe, staring at Gabe’s hair instead of his face. “Can stay, if you like.”

“…tonight?”

“If…yeah. Yeah, tonight. Or whenever. I know you’re busy.”

“More’s the pity,” Gabe says softly. “You a cuddler?”

Flip hesitates, pours another cup of water on Gabe’s hair that it definitely doesn’t need. “Not sure,” he says, finally. “Don’t typically share a bed.”

“Me neither,” Gabe says, and something uncurls in Flip’s chest, like a knot slipping undone. “Not in a long time.”

Flip sets down the cup, and then caresses the back of Gabe’s neck. “Want to let me wash your—”

There’s a sharp piercing wail from the front room.

Flip shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath. “I’ll—”

“Nah,” Gabe says, and he kneels in the tub, presses a kiss against Flip’s nose. “You head to bed, doll. I’ll settle the kid back down.” He stands up, water running off his naked body, and then casually grabs Flip’s towel from the rack and dries himself off before stepping out of the tub and tucking the towel around his waist. “Gotta be useful while I’m here, so you won’t kick me out.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes the entire way.

“Don’t,” Flip says. “Wouldn’t kick you out even if you didn’t lift a finger.” He stands up, leans forward, nuzzles Gabe’s damp hair. “Like having you here. It’s not about the work you do.”

Stensland wails again, his voice piercing, breath catching in his lungs.

“You deserve a break,” Gabe says softly. He reaches up, cradles the side of Flip’s face in his palm, and then ducks out the bathroom door into the living room.

Flip exhales, leans against the bathroom counter. Listens to Gabe’s low murmurs in the other room, the little hiccups that Stensland does while he’s calming down and before he settles. Flip’s fingers itch with the need to go out there—but he needs to let Gabe do this. He wants to let Gabe do this. Not because Flip needs a break, but because he wants Gabe to not worry about whatever it is that Gabe’s worrying about.

Being useful.

As though Gabe hadn’t upended Flip’s life completely, changed it for the better, just by showing back up again with the kid in tow.

As if Flip would ever want to go back to the empty, lonely facsimile of a life that he had before.

And, anyway, the decent thing to do, Flip reasons, is exactly the thing Gabe asked him to do—let Gabe deal with Stensland, and just—go to bed. And so Flip does exactly that.

He stares at his bed a moment, with no fucking idea if he’s supposed to lie on the left side or the right, and no idea whether it matters—for all he knows, Gabe will get dressed again and leave in the middle of the night. Flip eventually lies down on the left side, remembering Gabe on the right—ages ago, now, that first time that Flip had come into his bedroom and seen Gabe there, half-asleep with Stensland cradled on his chest.

Flip only closes his eyes for a minute—and when he next becomes aware of anything, it’s to the mattress creaking as Gabe sits down, and then shifts underneath the blankets, curls in close to Flip.

“Just gonna cuddle a minute,” Gabe says.

“Long as you want,” Flip murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Notes:** spit as (additional) lube | come as (additional) lube | brief overstimulation before backing off | 
> 
> There's a blog post for this chapter [over on my blog](https://heyktula.wordpress.com/2020/02/28/an-avenue-by-any-other-name-chapter-seven/). It talks about the changes I made to Kitchen canon, but also a bit about Gabriel's cycle of leaving, and Flip's changing relationship with intimacy.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), where I tweet about kylux, adjacents, and the Terror. Fauxtalian is [on twitter](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1) with her wonderful art! And [Deadsy](https://twitter.com/deadsy_art), who does my edits, is also over there!


	8. Closure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are what they are--and that's fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's the last chapter already!
> 
> Content notes are at the end, as per usual.

The phone rings.

Flip wakes suddenly, blinking and disoriented, all of the information coming to him at once—phone ringing, bed empty, lights off in the apartment, five in the morning, Stensland quiet in the other room, phone ringing, phone ringing. He gets out of bed and bolts for the phone, lifting it off the hook and listening for Stensland’s breathing from the crib—yes, there, he’s breathing evenly and regularly, still asleep—and finally puts the phone to his ear.

“—not sure which is worse.”

“Sorry,” Flip says, voice thick and groggy with sleep. “I didn’t catch that.”

“…shit. Did I…?”

“He’s sleeping, Gabe,” Flip says.

“Ah.”

Flip sighs, sits down on the cool floor of the kitchen in his boxers, stretches his legs out. “You’re not here.”

“I’m…not there,” Gabe says. A click in the background, and then the drag of a long inhalation. “It’s stupid, really—that’s what I was calling to tell you.”

“I would have found out when I woke up.”

“I didn’t want you to find out that way.”

“Well, since you called to tell me…where are you?”

“Grand Junction.”

Flip chuckles into the phone, leans back against the wall. “How didn’t you get pulled over for speeding?”

Gabe makes a small noise into the phone. “I’m good at evading cops.”

“Did you forget where my cock was last night?”

Gabe actually _laughs,_ a quick explosion of sound that appears to startle him just as much as it startles Flip. “Trust me, Zimmerman, I am _acutely_ aware of where your cock was last night.” He sighs heavily. “I had somewhere for it to be this morning, too.”

“…that safe?”

“God, Flip. Course it is. Wasn’t my ass I was gonna put your cock in this morning, though.”

“Hold on a second.” Flip sets the phone down on the counter, goes into the living room. Picks up Stensland, carries him into the bedroom, sets him down on the bed, and shuts the door. Goes back out to the kitchen, and picks up the phone again. “You still there?”

“Yeah.”

Flip hesitates a moment, and then slides back down onto the floor, gets comfortable. “So, uh. I like that mouth of yours…”

“Oh, I like it too. But that wasn’t what I had in mind either.”

“Yeah?”

“Was thinking my thighs.”

Flip frowns. “What?”

“Picture this,” Gabe says, voice going low and soft. “I’m on your bed. All fours, ass in the air.”

“Uh-huh.” Flip takes a deep breath, and then switches the phone to his other shoulder, slides his hand into his boxers. His cock is soft, but starts thickening when he brushes it with his fingers. Gabe’s voice, low and close in his ear with just a touch of static, makes the process easier. “You naked?”

“Definitely. Probably still slick from where you fucked me last night.”

“That’s a thing?”

“We went through a lot of lube.”

“Right.” Flip strokes himself, his hand constricted by his underwear in a way that is completely unfamiliar, and somehow, all the more erotic for it. “Keep talking.”

“Are you…?”

“Yeah,” Flip breathes, voice quiet. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” Gabe says. “I want you to.” He takes a deep breath. “So. I’m on your bed. All fours. Lube on my ass. You’re rubbing lube between my thighs too, getting it in there. Getting me nice and slick for you. Once you’re hard—are you hard, Flip?”

“Fuck, _yes_.”

“You can put your hands on my hips. Rub your cock on my crack. It’s the same deal as fuckin’ me is, only—instead of fucking my hole, you’re just gonna aim your cock a touch lower. Slip it between my thighs. I’m squeezin’ ‘em together, nice and tight for you. Got my ankles crossed and everything, you can just—you can fuck into me like that, nice and hard—hard as you want, you can’t hurt me at all—and if you fuck me nice and deep, you’ll be able to rub up against my cock. You want that, Flip? You want to rub up against my cock?”

Flip exhales, grips his cock tight. Closes his eyes, tries to forget that he’s sitting on his kitchen floor, tries his best to imagine Gabe here, just as he’s pretending he is—but it’s hard to do that, when he doesn’t have enough mental images of Gabe to be able to properly string the image together. Easier, maybe, to imagine Gabe in a hotel room in Grand Junction, lying on the bed with the phone cradled on his shoulder, his hand shoved down his pants. No—both hands shoved down his pants, one jerking off his cock, and the other curled around behind, pressing at the place where Flip’s cock had been last night—up Gabe’s ass, pressing his fingers up in the place where Flip had fucked him, where—

“Angle it right,” Gabe continues, “and you’re gonna be able to feel it when I come.”

“You gonna—come, _hah—_ come first?”

“You’re gonna make me,” Gabe says into the phone. “Gonna fuck me so good I won’t be able to do anything else—gonna cuff me to the bed and keep me there—gonna cover me with your come, leave me, come back when you’re horny again—”

“—want you all the time,” Flip manages. His cock feels like a foreign thing in his hand, large and hot and trapped, and it feels like he can’t stroke himself as fast as he needs. He leans back against the wall, tries shifting his hips, fucking up into his fist, tries to imagine that he can feel Gabe—but it’s easier to imagine Gabe sprawled out on the bed, face pink, his shirt rucked up out of the way, hair messy. “Don’t care about the crime thing.”

“The crime thing,” Gabe repeats, in a tone of voice that should be mocking, but doesn’t quite make it there.

“Do you care—that I’m—a cop?”

Gabe laughs, hysterical and high-pitched, before his voice is suddenly muffled. “Flip, you—fucking, I just—I’ve got a goddamn—oh, fucking hell—cop fetish—found out a week before the fire—saw your wire—you’d reached up to grab something, and I saw—skin, your goddamn bare waist and those couple of moles right by your hip, and the elastic of your goddamn boxers, and just that little glimpse of wire—took me till—till later—and I thought it was just—but then you had to be— _yourself_ about everything, and I—”

Flip groans, tips his head back against the wall. He’s close to being overwhelmed completely—and he latches onto the only thing that he understands right now. “Tell me what you were doing,” he commands. “When you knew. Tell me.”

“Flip.”

“Gabe,” Flip says steadily. “I’ll let you listen to me come, Gabe…”

“Jacking off,” Gabe says, his voice muffled and low. “Thinking about that goddamn goatee of yours scratching me up good between my legs, your mouth between my thighs, your tongue up my ass, my toes on your waist pushing down your pants—and that’s when I realized there’d been a wire, there’d been a wire because you’re—Flip, fucking Christ, Flip—you’re a—”

“Cop,” Flip breathes, and he thrusts up into his fist, comes all over his hand, his bare heels scrabbling at the kitchen floor, and his head banging back against the wall. It feels like he’s underwater, suddenly bereft of Gabe’s presence—and it takes him a minute to realize it’s because he’s dropped the phone, takes him another minute to find it, fumble it back up to his ear. “You still there?”

Gabe chuckles. “Yeah, I am.”

“...you come?”

“Christ,” Gabe says, “I’m in a phone booth, Zimmerman.”

Flip’s entire face goes hot. “You’re _what_ ,” he demands in a whisper.

In response, there’s the sound of something opening, shifting—and then Flip can hear it, faintly, through the phone line—the start of morning traffic in Grand Junction, vehicles on the road, the distant bark of a dog—before the sounds go muffled again, and Flip can just hear Gabe.

“No,” Gabe says. “For clarification, I did not.” He exhales. “Not for lack of you trying, though. You, uh, do that thing you usually do?”

“Hmm?”

“Come like a fire hose?”

Flip looks down at himself, grimaces. “Ugh, I’ll have to shower.”

“Good,” Gabe says. “I’ll think about that when I get back on the road. Which, uh.”

“Right,” Flip says. “Don’t drive like an idiot, huh? You gotta get back here when you’re done.”

“…yeah,” Gabe says softly. “I’ll come back when I’m done. I’m sorry I…”

“Hey,” Flip says. “It’s alright. Stens and I are doing well. We’ll be here when you can come back.”

He waits on the line a few moments, listens to Gabe breathe. Waits for the click on the other end.

What he gets instead is Gabe’s voice, soft and low. “You know it’s not just about the cop thing, huh?”

“Yeah?”

“Not anymore,” Gabe says, and there’s a soft click as he hangs up the phone.

Flip stands up, sets the phone back on the cradle.

He’s halfway through his shower when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and realizes that he’s smiling.

*

Flip doesn’t see Gabe’s car for a while, but that’s okay.

He’ll see it when he sees it.

And he knows he will.

*

Flip answers the phone without thinking. “Zimmerman here.”

Gabe looks over from where he’s sitting at the kitchen table, shoulders tightening just slightly.

“Hey, Flip,” Ron says. “Question for you.”

“Ron,” Flip says, mostly for Gabe’s benefit—who relaxes, turns back to Stensland. Flip unwinds the phone cord, paces a couple steps into the living room. “What’s going on?”

“Was looking for some files at work earlier today,” Ron says. “Couldn’t find them. Realized when I got home it was possible that you knew where they were, is that right?”

“Could be,” Flip allows, carefully sorting through the words Ron is saying until he reaches the words that Ron _isn’t_ saying. Doesn’t look at the desk in the living room, even though he knows that’s where the Gabriel O’Malley file is, where it’s been the entire time—so long, now, that Flip kinda forgot he even had the fucking thing. “Appreciate you calling from home.”

Ron chuckles into the phone. “Yeah, well.”

“I’ll take a look for those files…” Flip glances into the kitchen. _Today_ should be his answer—it’s Saturday, the station will be dead, he can wander in, replace the files, wander out again without anybody the wiser.

But it’s been a couple of weeks since the last visit, and Gabe is here _now_ , and Flip, selfishly, doesn’t want to go.

“…Monday,” he says. “We keep putting the rookies in the file room, they’re bound to misfile stuff.”

“Fist to mouth, little buddy,” Gabe says, leaning down to pick up a piece of broccoli. “Not fist to floor.”

The small of his back is visible when he bends over, and Flip swallows.

(It’s almost better, seeing Gabe now when he hasn’t for a few weeks—like everything about Gabe is new, but familiar at the same time.)

“True,” Ron says. “I was thinking—if I looked on those files, I’d probably see a record of that call that happened—fuck, how many months ago was that?”

“A handful,” Flip says. “Not that it came to anything.”

“Course not,” Ron says. “But that phone call should be documented.”

“Yeah. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Say I needed that stuff earlier than Monday, though—you’ve got the kid, but I could swing by later tonight, see if you happened to recall where those files are?”

“Yup,” Flip says. “You could do that.”

“Thanks,” Ron says—and, somehow, he makes it sound like Flip is doing him a favour.

“Things alright over there?” Gabe asks the moment the phone is hung up.

“Yeah,” Flip says, leaning against the wall. “Things alright in there?”

“Well,” Gabe says. “Your floor might not be the same again.”

Flip glances down to the remnants of squashed broccoli next to Stensland’s high chair, shrugs. “It’s not our floor I’m worried about. Kid looks happy. You look happy too.”

Gabe watches him a moment before his shoulders lower. “Suppose I am,” he says.

“Good,” Flip says. He steps forward, presses a kiss to the top of Gabe’s head, and then retreats back to the living room, whistling.

*

They move the crib into Flip’s room for the night, because Gabe’s making noise about wanting to lay on the couch for a bit and watch TV, maybe finish deep-cleaning the kitchen. Flip’s not going to argue with him, though he thinks privately that maybe he should look into a bigger rental at some point, something with a bedroom just for Stensland, because the kid’s growing like a weed. It’s not realistic to have him sleeping out in the living room for the rest of his life, and Flip doesn’t want to keep Gabe from having access to the kitchen when he wants it—Gabe hasn’t said shit about it, but Flip notices the way Gabe cooks when he’s working through something, figures it’d be nice to make sure Gabe can always do that, whenever he needs it.

It takes a while to settle Stensland down—he keeps reaching up and touching Flip’s face and giggling, and Flip doesn’t have the heart to be stern with him, so he just sits beside the crib, lets Stensland keep poking at him and laughing, and wonders how the fuck he got so lucky in the first place. Gabe could have taken Stensland anywhere. There are a hundred thousand lifetimes where Flip never saw Gabriel O’Malley again, not once—but that’s not the lifetime that he’s in, and he’s got Stensland, now, on top of everything, which is something Flip never even knew he wanted until it happened, and now he can’t imagine his life without him.

(Gabe could have been the kind of person that wouldn’t have picked up a wailing infant in the first place, but that’s not who Gabriel O’Malley is, and Flip is thankful for it. And who’d have thought that a wailing infant would grow into the little adorable baby that’s fallen asleep now with his mouth open and one hand clutching Flip’s fingers, breathing steadily and just looking so goddamn _happy_.)

Gabe must have hundreds of contacts in New York, not to mention all the other cities he works in, but he brought the kid _here_ , to Flip—and he keeps coming back to Flip—and Flip knows, now, that Gabe always will, for as long as he can, and if the stretches between visits keep getting shorter and shorter, that’s fine. And if, someday, the next visit doesn’t come—Flip knows that it’s not because Gabe didn’t want it to, and he also knows that he would drop everything and track Gabe down, this time, instead of just drinking himself into a hole like he had after the fire.

Flip stands, stretches. Keeps the bedside light on for Stensland, just so he doesn’t get disoriented when he’s in a different room than usual. Shuts the door quietly as he leaves, and then turns to find Gabe perched on the edge of his desk, shirtless.

He’s holding a file folder in his hands.

It’s the folder Flip had stolen from the precinct ages ago, the one Ron called about earlier today. Flip had set it on the desk earlier, intending to quietly update it while Gabe was watching tv, except that Gabe isn’t watching tv, he’s just—paging through his own record, setting each piece of paper down on the desk as he reads it.

Flip stills. Clears his throat.

Gabe squints down at the file. Picks something up—it’s a photograph, one of the surveillance photos. One of the ones Ron took, three years ago. The ones that sting a bit to look at now, because the feelings on Flip’s face are so fucking raw it’s ridiculous that Flip didn’t realize how gone he was on Gabe, even then.

Gabe sets the photograph down. Looks up.

Flip sets his jaw and waits.

“I can correct these records for you,” Gabe says mildly. “File’s riddled with errors, I’d be embarrassed if I were you.” He sets the next photograph down on the desk, keeps looking through the file. “I look like a fuckin' asshole in most of these, the hell you keep these photos of me shooting for?”

Flip cautiously walks over, leans against the desk without touching Gabe. Looks over Gabe’s shoulder at the photos. “You always shoot like that.”

Gabe scoffs. “Doesn’t mean you need to immortalize it for everybody, Christ.”

“Had to show them what we were dealing with,” Flip says, voice low. Leans in, right next to Gabe’s ear. “Terrifying criminal like you from the big city.”

“Fuckin’ drunk, more like,” Gabe says, but he leans back anyways, rests his head on Flip’s shoulder. “There’s a hell of a lot of intel on me here.”

“We don’t get a lot of...people coming down from New York to Colorado Springs, that’s all,” Flip says. He hesitates, and then admits it. “I might have had a bit of a...fixation on you, also.”

“Really,” Gabe says, sounding pleased. “Even then?”

“Even then,” Flip says.

Gabe picks up everything and slides it back in the folder, sets it down on the desk. “So, uh. With all this intel.”

“Yeah?”

“Am I safe here?”

“As safe as we can make you,” Flip says. “I’m not gonna let anybody fuck up what we have. Not now, and not ever.”

Gabe looks up at him, and his face is uncharacteristically vulnerable. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Flip says fiercely—and then he leans in, kisses Gabe as if he can prove the point that way.

*

When the knock comes at the apartment door, Flip takes a minute to actually look through the peephole, confirm that it’s Ron before he opens the door.

“Hey, Flip.”

“Hey, Ron.”

“You updated that bit?” Ron asks. He’s actually inside the apartment, because Flip couldn’t think of a good reason for him not to be, even though the sound of the shower running is faintly audible from the entrance.

“With the phone call, yeah,” Flip says. “Didn’t add much. Didn’t want it to look like a thing.”

“Because it’s not,” Ron says easily. “Perfect, thank you.” He pages through the file another time. “If anybody asks—not that anybody should—just let them know that I had this the entire time, would you?”

“Sure,” Flip agrees. Fuck, the sound of the shower running is loud, and it’s making Flip uneasy, because he’s got no excuse as to who is here, and why—but Ron, thank fuck, doesn’t remark on it, only closes the file, and tucks it into his briefcase.

“Thanks again,” Ron says. “You in on Monday?”

“Yup.”

“See you then,” Ron says, and then he’s out of Flip’s apartment just as quietly as he was in.

In the bathroom, the shower stops running. After a moment, the door to the bathroom opens, which is as clear an invitation as Flip’s ever going to get.

Flip exhales, and then goes to join Gabe.

*

Flip wakes on the couch, the tv turned to static, and the clock reading one am. He rubs his eyes blearily, and catches sight of Gabe, standing by the tv holding Stensland in his arms.

“You alright?” Flip asks softly.

Gabe looks up at him. “Kid was fussin’,” he says.

Stensland doesn’t look like he was fussing—he’s dead asleep, and there’s no tear tracks on his face, which means he wasn’t crying either—but Flip’s spent plenty of time holding Stensland to make himself feel better, so he’s not going to question it when Gabe does the same.

“Here,” Flip says blearily. He shifts on the couch. “I’ll take him when you’re ready, look after settling him back down.”

Gabe blinks at him owlishly, doesn’t hand Stensland over.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Flip says. “It’s alright—I can take the kid, save you some time.”

Gabe sighs, looks down at Stensland again. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, I’m leaving. I…gotta.”

“It’s okay,” Flip repeats. He glances over to the side, makes sure there’s room for Gabe and Stensland both, but Gabe doesn’t take the hint, just comes over to Flip and hands Stensland over. Stensland huffs out a little sigh, whacks his little fist on Flip’s chest, and then settles in, starts to drool on Flip’s sternum.

Gabe is standing by the coffee table, watching them. When Flip looks up at him, Gabe exhales sharp and then leans forward, crams his mouth against Flip’s in a harsh kiss. He smells and tastes like Flip’s toothpaste. The kiss is comforting and familiar, and Gabe’s eyes are blown when he finally pulls away.

“Call me, huh?” Flip asks.

“Yeah,” Gabe says, voice rough. “I’ll fucking call you, yeah.”

Flip watches Gabe go, calls out again just before Gabe disappears into the hall. “Hey.”

Gabe stops. Turns. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” Flip says, finally giving voice to the thing that’s been growing in his chest for months, now. “Be careful, would you?”

Gabe swallows audibly. Blinks fast, tips his head up to the ceiling. “Yeah,” he says, finally, voice cracking. “I will be.” He swallows again, looks back at Flip. “Gotta come back to you and the kid, anyways.”

“Always space for you here,” Flip says. Then, just to take the pressure off Gabe—because it doesn’t matter whether Gabe responds or not, Flip said what he needed to say—he closes his eyes, leans his head back.

Opens his eyes a moment later when the couch creaks. Gabe’s taken the blanket from Flip’s bed, and is half spreading it over Flip and Stensland, half crawling underneath it himself.

“Thought you had to go?” Flip murmurs.

Gabe hesitates. “You kicking me out?”

“Fuck no,” Flip says, and he slings his arm around Gabe’s shoulders, pulls him in close. “Never.”

Gabe exhales. “Alright. I’ll stay a minute, then.” He settles against Flip’s arm, curls his arm around Stensland. Closes his eyes. Shudders once, and then relaxes, shuts his eyes. He's breathing deep and even in less than ten minutes.

Flip bends his head, presses his lips to Gabe’s hair. “I love you,” he says softly.

It’s a lot easier to say it the second time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Notes:** ye olde cop fetish shows up again | brief mention of Flip's prior issues with alcohol | brief mention of Gabe's as well | 
> 
> And, that's it--we're done! I hope you enjoyed the fic--as you can see, it is listed as a series now, but I haven't scheduled the Gabe-POV followup, so if you're interested, please subscribe to the series so you get the notification when it's updated at some unparticular time in the future.
> 
> There's a blog post for this chapter [over on my blog](https://heyktula.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/an-avenue-by-any-other-name-chapter-eight/). It talks about character arcs, changing a physical sex scene to a phone sex scene, and a bit about upcoming projects.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), where I tweet about kylux, adjacents, and the Terror. Fauxtalian is [on twitter](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1) with her wonderful art! And [Deadsy](https://twitter.com/deadsy_art), who does my edits, is also over there!

**Author's Note:**

>  **Acknowledgements:** This fic owes a lot of things to a lot of people.
> 
> To Jeu, who came up with the headcanon of Stensland being a Zimmalley child, thus piquing my curiosity as to how, exactly, that might have come about.
> 
> To agnosiabeforecoffee, who helped me out with a ton of research that didn’t make it directly into the fic, but nevertheless impacted the way that I wrote it. (Any mistakes I’ve made, and I’m sure there are many, are completely my own.)
> 
> To for_autumn_I_am, who read the initial draft of this piece as I was drafting it, and advised me that it was, in fact, a story, and I should keep it up.
> 
> To deadsy, who encouraged me through this, talked me off a number of cliffs, watched the movies with me multiple times, and who also did all the beta work.
> 
> And, finally, to fauxtalian, who offered to do art for the fic, and consequently has blessed the fic with /so much art/ and I am just absolutely delighted that everyone else can look at it as well, now.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), though I do have [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).


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